Why? This is the most important guideline I use when suggesting reworks. The goal of the document is to demonstrate how each For Honor character can be viable and interesting while only utilizing existing tools and mechanics. Not only does this make pulling ideas from this document more realistic as they shouldn’t be overly demanding from the developers, this should also make theorycrafting how these reworks function in-game to be much easier as we won’t need to brainstorm how hypothetical new moves would function and interact with existing tools.

Focus on introducing more kit flow and chains across the board for more in depth kits and mixup potential

Why? For Honor’s chain design is in many ways simply a restriction on a given characters’ options after winning neutral. For example, after landing an opener heavy on Warden you may only flow into a finisher heavy despite having a chain light built into his kit, resulting in his chain pressure being weaker than his kit could potentially allow. Many players when theorycrafting their own reworks will adjust a characters’ chains by giving them the “Kensei treatment”, a term coined after Kensei’s initial rework gave him all variations of lights and heavies in his three part chain. While not every character necessarily needs the “Kensei treatment’, this philosophy of better implementing existing moves into characters’ kits can create more dynamic and free flowing characters, giving players more options and therefore more opportunity for player expression.

Spread viability across all parts of characters’ kits; decreasing cases of individual over or undertuned tools

Why? When a characters’ kit is improperly balanced, where certain tools are objectively better options than others by a wide margin, playstyles on these characters tend to converge. Players will tend to avoid using a characters “bad” tools (E.g Conq’s infinite chain) and instead focus on using their “good” tools (E.g Conq’s neutral bash), resulting in any given player usually playing the same way as any other. Not only does this reduce the ability for viewers to identify distinct playstyles from different players (something that is fairly identifiable for experienced viewers in other fighting games such as SSBM), it also results in the “but its all he has” argument. By redistributing viability across the entirety of characters’ kits, both of these issues will be addressed, and the resulting characters will be healthier and more interesting.

Eliminate all cases of 233-266ms reactions

Why? Reactability is unfortunately a subjective trait, which means that something one player might find easy to react to may be impossible for another, simply due to factors such as genetics, age, and platform. While it is impossible to standardize the reactability of the game across all platforms and demographics, we can at least try to reduce the divide between the two ends of the spectrum. The issue with reactions between 233-266ms is that for players with faster reactions, a simple or choice reaction may be able to be made, while for players with slower reactions these values can be considered unreactable. From a developer perspective, any given move should usually be intended to be either reactable or unreactable, and these values aren’t one or the other due to the nature of demographics and platform limitations. By assigning 300ms as the lowest value to be considered reactable, and 200ms as the threshold to be considered unreactable, this issue should be at least partially mitigated. You will see however, that I incorporate some unique ideas into many of the reworks to still reward players with above average reactions without having to rely on these values.

Reward players for reaching deeper into their chains by designing chains to become more powerful the deeper you get into them, while still providing strong offensive tools to access chains from neutral.

Why? Characters need a strong neutral game so that the game doesn’t play as “the first player to press a button loses”, and so characters can actually access their chains in the first place. However, when a character’s chained offense is weaker than their neutral (E.g Conq), a player is incentivized to reset to neutral after landing an opener to reaccess that strong opener rather than attempting to use their weaker chains. By redesigning chains to become stronger the deeper you get into them while still providing potent neutral tools to avoid staring matches, players are rewarded with threatening followup pressure when landing offensive tools which facilitates maintained offense.

Turn properties such as enhanced and undodgeable into more prevalent properties throughout the game to provide additional depth and new mixups

Why? Many of the game’s special properties can be implemented into existing kits to create more threatening mixups that cover more defensive options. As of now, these properties are simply underutilized considering the benefit they can provide to a lot of characters.

Make offense less punishable on the whole through different proactive defensive options (such as recovery cancels), less potent defensive tools, and safer offensive tools

Why? Although the risk/reward ratio of attacking in For Honor has steadily improved, there are still many cases where interactions are defender-favored. For example, when punishing an offensive tool such as Conq’s bash or Tiandi’s palm strike, the dodge attack punish often deals more damage than the offensive tool would have dealt had it landed. Revamping damage values so that defensive options consistently provide a lower reward than the offensive tool they’re defending against, as well as making offensive tools safer overall through adjustments to recoveries and new proactive defensive options will correct the game’s overall risk/reward ratio to a more healthy balance.

General Changes

“Light Spam” Accommodation

I really dislike the term light spam since at least from my perspective, it doesn’t exist. Lights should be blocked 33% of the time on average anyways, and with how many defensive options the game has, there’s often more than one way around them. As well, you can always respond to light spam with light spam of your own if you perceive it to be a viable option. That being said, I am speaking from the perspective of a competitive player on PC. For many full population players, as well as perhaps console players as a whole because of input lag, fast lights are difficult and likely frustrating to deal with. Now I’ll reiterate, even though I and likely much of the competitive community feel that “light spam” isn’t an issue, the overwhelming majority of the game’s very modestly sized community may disagree. What’s even more important however is that the developers have already made some adjustments to accommodate the outcry against light spam, and I don’t think they are particularly healthy.

The FH developers changed the game so that landing a light attack against an enemy or having your light attack blocked puts you in frame disadvantage, you can now dodge out of many characters’ hitstun to avoid chained light attacks, and light attacks now cost 12 stamina.

Part of the first adjustment isn’t so bad; it provides players a chance to open up their own offense after successfully making a read and blocking an enemy light, shifting the offensive flow of the match and rewarding successful defensive play. However, the real issue with this change is the fact that light attacks are frame disadvantage on hit. While having frame disadvantage from having a light blocked is a reward for successful defensive play, having frame disadvantage from landing a light is simply a detriment to offense. This negatively affects many characters’ offense by punishing players for successfully landing their offensive tools. For example, Shaolin landing a Qi kick or Tiandi landing a palm strike currently puts both characters into frame disadvantage, forcing the characters to then respect the enemy’s neutral pressure.

The second adjustment is downright awful. This is an enormous nerf to characters with chained lights, making it much more difficult to continuously pressure since enemies can negate a large portion of your offense with a single input. For example: If Orochi hits Tiandi with an opener light, Tiandi can then input a dragon dodge which i-frames both Orochi’s chained light and chained heavy, and if Orochi were to feint GB it would bounce off. In this interaction, Orochi’s entire chained offense is gutted, and he is instead forced to respect the dragon dodge, which can then just be feinted to reset the fight back to neutral. This has a detrimental effect on the offense of characters with strong chained lights across all skill levels, and encourages players to land single neutral options then resetting back to neutral rather than continuing their chains.

The additional stamina costs on light attacks is also a poor adjustment to address light spam, since it has much larger implications than simply making light spam more stamina intensive. This adjustment is a nerf to many characters’ minion clear and a nerf to tools that confirm a light attack such as bashes or PK’s deep gouge. As a result, even though other adjustments to stamina like the removal of stamina drain on parry encourages players to be pressing more buttons, it still feels disadvantageous to sustain offense for long since you still drain through stamina rather quickly.

In order to appeal to the full population and console players’ complaints on the topic of light spam without having significant adverse effects on top level play (which the live changes currently do), we’re going to implement some adjustments that tone down the severity of the devs’ changes.

Players can no longer dodge out of chained lights (hitstun increased? Reverted change)
Light attacks on hit now reset to neutral rather than giving the enemy frame advantage

Blocked light attacks still give the enemy frame advantage

Light attack stamina costs reduced to 8 (from 12)

No longer being able to dodge out of chains is the most important adjustment here. The original adjustment allowing players to dodge out of chains was a huge buff to characters with strong dodge attacks and a huge nerf to characters with decent mid-chain light attacks. Removing this change will allow a wider array of characters to achieve competitive viability allowing them to better utilize the positive elements of the Core Combat Update.

Removing the frame disadvantage from landing a light attack will also make many characters feel less clunky (E.g live game PK dagger cancel giving 400ms of frame advantage to the enemy) and better encourage players to throw out attacks. Since we are keeping the frame disadvantage on blocked lights, full population players will still have opportunities to open up their own offense when they successfully block a light, so they will still have the tools to deal with light spam.

Reducing the stamina cost of light attacks is a straightforward change since the live game increase is absurd. At a stamina cost of 8, light attacks will still cost slightly more stamina than they did before the Core Combat Update, but to a significantly less extent than they currently are. This should be a big help in allowing characters to sustain offense without risking going OOS.

Reflex Guard Rework

Reflex guard is fundamentally flawed in its design. The intention is to give assassins a guard that is more mechanically demanding to use but compensated with additional offensive potential. In reality, reflex accomplishes neither of those things. Blocking attacks on reaction is no more difficult on reflex guard than on static guard, and instead, guard expiration is just clunky artificial difficulty that makes attempting to block multiple attacks from the same direction frustrating (E.g an enemy feints a heavy into a heavy from the same direction and your guard expires right before the second one hits). The “more offensive” design of reflex guard no longer exists either. Although at launch it was beneficial since static guard needed 300ms to swap guard into an attack and reflex only took 100ms, the adjustment to static guard to also take 100ms puts both guard designs on an even playing field offensively.

Once a guard is activated in any direction, inputting block again in the same direction before guard expiration will refresh that guard direction

Currently with reflex guard, to refresh your guard you need to swap guard directions then back to the original direction. This adjustment will mostly eliminate the artificial difficulty reflex guard provides, allowing assassins to continuously guard in any direction so long that players keep inputting block before guard expiration.

Once reflex guard is expired and set into the neutral position, light and heavy attacks from the last used guard direction now have their indicators hidden until the parry window

The reflex neutral guard position where no guard is active in any direction is clearly intended to be a source of offensive pressure. Attacks from the neutral position come from the last used guard direction, which is supposed to “hide” where a player is going to attack from next. Unfortunately this doesn’t actually do anything because any player paying attention can remember where their opponent was last guarding, meaning the neutral position doesn’t actually provide any additional offensive pressure and is simply a disadvantageously defensive position to be in. With this change, there is now actual incentive to be in the neutral guard position. By sacrificing an active guard direction, assassins can now access a pseudo-unreactable light from their last guard direction (reactable by animation, unreactable by indicator, similar to storming tap), as well as a heavy with very little indicator to mix up with (less significant but still valuable). This now forces enemies to remember your last guard direction and match their guard to that direction, as reacting to just the animation of a hidden-indicator light is easier said than done. This will provide additional choice reaction pressure in neutral, actually giving assassins a reason to be in neutral guard rather than it being an objective deficit.

“Unlocking” Changes

Unlocking and running away to regain stamina, to disengage from an unfavorable skirmish, or running around the map to waste everyone’s time as the last living member of your dominion team has always been pretty obnoxious. These changes are to eliminate unlock disengaging / stalling in duel environments and make running away in general less effective

When unlocked, if an enemy is locked on to you, your stamina will deplete at a rate of 20/s. Depletion will begin 500ms after this criteria is met. Once the criteria is cancelled (enemy unlocks or you re-lock), a 500ms stamina regen pause is applied. Against OOS enemies, stamina regen is paused indefinitely until lock-on is reapplied or any locked-on enemies unlock from you.

Stamina depletion status effect can be marked by an “eye” symbol next to the stamina bar

Unlocking now triggers a 2000ms stamina regen pause

In the previous version of this document, I suggested that when you’re unlocked and an enemy locks on to you, they heal at a slow but significant rate. This I felt was too intrusive of a mechanic and only decentivized unlocking rather than making the option unviable. Now, unlocking to regain stamina is virtually impossible when still engaged with an enemy, as you will instead lose stamina so long that the enemy remains locked on. The 500ms delay before activation is so that situations such as when a player is sprinting toward a locked-on enemy they wish to engage in doesn’t have the player begin the fight with a stamina deficit. The 2000ms stamina regen pause is to eliminate “shuffling” as an alternative disengagment option.

This also solves a problem with OOS pressure. Against Conq for example, a frequent strategy is to unlock and walk away while OOS. This is because Conq’s forward bash will usually only have enough tracking when delayed to catch fleeing OOS enemy, and the followup light pushes the enemy too far out of range to continue to pressure. This will no longer be a viable strategy, and the enemy is instead forced to deal with this pressure.

Dominion Changes

In previous versions of this document, I had more changes to how renown is generated in dominion, however upon reflection I don’t think they were particularly necessary. Instead I feel only a single change needs to be made to renown to eliminate the “sit on a capture point the entire game” strategy. This is something you often see in matchmaking games, since even though from a competitive perspective you are leaving your team to fight 3v4 for the whole match (losing strategy), the game gives the illusion of it being a smart choice since it generates additional points for your team and builds renown for your feats. Not only does this undermine all of the nuances of dominion strategies and team coordination, it can also be frustrating for your teammates since the guy that didn’t help all game may end up first in points on the scoreboard by the end of the match.

Boosting a point no longer generates renown for the point booster (was 55/min for vanguards and hybrids, 65/min for heavies, 22/min for assassins)

This is a straightforward change that eliminates this strategy. While point boosting still gives your team additional points, which can be valuable near the end of a game to reach 1100 points and therefore safeguard against a point recapture, there is no longer any positive feedback for planting yourself on a point and never leaving.

The other adjustment to dominion will be regarding mid lane clear. Currently, competitive team compositions require a dedicated mid lane clear character with body count. While some characters without body count have good tools and hitboxes for clearing minions, the inability to sustain themselves in mid lane puts them at a natural disadvantage against characters that do have the body count feat. The developers’ approach to addressing this issue has been continuously nerfing body count’s effectiveness, which I don’t think is the best way to introduce more characters to the mid lane clearing role.

Killing minions now always heals players for 2 HP and restores 2 stamina

This change stacks with body count

With this change, all characters now have the ability to sustain themselves in mid lane, allowing a greater variety of characters to be active in this role. Characters with body count will still have a slight edge in their sustain, but now the difference between characters that do and don’t have the feat will be less significant since all characters receive this benefit.

Revenge Changes

Revenge is intended to be “the comeback mechanic” when you’re getting ganked or focused in a teamfight, providing a moment of super-boosted offense without having to focus much on interrupts or defensive options because of the super armor provided. Here’s how revenge often works instead: A: You hold on to revenge until you find the perfect opportunity to activate it, then deal 80 damage as a knockdown punish, B: You miss your knockdown punish, and now all of the enemies run away until your revenge is over, or C: enemies don’t run away, but you got one of your attacks parried and now the enemies set up their gank and your revenge is expired. Of course there are exceptions, however with how it is currently designed, revenge isn’t an opportunity to take revenge, it's a “get off me” tool.

Revenge now provides constant super armor throughout its duration, rather than only when attacking. Only applies when locked on.
Any GB attempts against an enemy in revenge will now bounce off, regardless if the enemy is in a typically GB vulnerable state (e.g in the middle of a dodge or in attack recovery)
Getting parried while in revenge now only causes attacks to bounce off (like having a non-enhanced light blocked), and the player in revenge is given 100ms of frame advantage

These changes are to address the third aforementioned scenario where an enemy parry or dodge GB puts you into the same gank scenario you were defending against before you got revenge, wasting the duration and only allowing you to stall longer. Now, with the inability to set up GB or hitstun-based ganks against enemies in revenge, players must respect revenge more and focus on surviving its duration rather than attentively looking for an opportunity to secure the kill. Landing a parry against someone in revenge is no longer a “now you get ganked” option either, instead only partially alleviating offensive pressure and resetting them to neutral. This should make revenge feel much more oppressive than it currently is, which is a good thing because it will now actually provide an opportunity to anti-gank.

When in revenge, locked on and unlocked movement speed is increased by 30%

This is to address situations where you activate revenge and your gankers run away, wasting the duration. This is much too viable a strategy since many characters don’t have the rush-down options needed to counterplay against this strategy. With a significant speed boost, you should now be able to close that distance and make better use of your revenge duration. This also makes revenge a better disengagement option, allowing players to escape disadvantageous scenarios. Note: since the supersonic perk is pretty much built into revenge now, it may need to be replaced with something new

When in an outnumbered situation with two or more revenge tags, the revenge bar now continuously fills at a rate of 1% per second

Stalling out multiple enemies is an extremely valuable strategy for your team, as it allows the remainder of your team to play objectives / teamfights with a numbers advantage. However, the benefits of stalling are only recognized through point gain for your team, and even then it can be difficult to gauge the degree of value you’ve provided to your team. Without a significant renown benefit for stalling enemies, successfully stalling enemies can also result in having a feat deficit compared to the rest of your team. In order to reward successful stalling strategies and to provide a more visible benefit to utilizing this strategy, having the revenge bar continuously but slowly fill will help provide the opportunity to anti-gank and punish players that set up their ganks too slowly.

Once a revenge meter is filled and ready to activate, if it is not activated within 10 seconds, the meter will deplete to 50%

With some major buffs to revenge, some nerfs are in order to eliminate the unhealthy aspects of the mechanic. Holding on to revenge is arguably more powerful than the revenge itself, as it can be held indefinitely and enemies need to play around the threat of taking 80 damage for throwing out an attack. Since we are trying to shift revenge away from a stalling tool to an actual opportunity to take revenge, we’ll have to limit the amount of time revenge can be held to force players to activate it.

After getting knocked down by an enemy in revenge, after getting hit once, 80% damage mitigation is applied while getting up

Getting thrown to the ground by someone activating revenge or getting GBed by someone in revenge and taking 80 damage is no fun. Sure, it does provide a “comeback”, but it undermines the core fight system and can be frustrating on the receiving end. Considering the offensive buffs we have already provided to revenge, it's reasonable to nerf knock down confirms by a significant margin. By applying an 80% damage reduction only after getting hit once, you can still confirm big damage off a knockdown but nowhere near the current overtuned values.

Stun Changes

Stun is currently a very flawed mechanic. It is extremely obnoxious, and prior to the Core Combat Update, was also platform dependent in its effectiveness. We’re going to implement some adjustments that make stun less intrusive, reducing the frustration it has on players.

Stun no longer causes a blinding effect, and instead only hides the UI for its duration.

Many players may say stun doesn’t have a use now, since you can just react to animations that are now more visible without the blinding effect. I would disagree; as seen with moves like storming tap, hiding an indicator can certainly make reacting to a move more difficult, although the margin for which may vary from player to player. More importantly however, now that stun isn’t as obnoxious, it can be implemented into more kits where it would otherwise be too oppressive.

Bleed Changes

Many characters have mechanics that benefit off bleed built into their kit, such as Shaman’s healing property and PK’s lights becoming enhanced. However, there are still cases of characters having tools that deal bleed without any mechanics to capitalize on it, such as Valk’s shoulder pin. It would be nice for bleed to have an additional deficit that further differentiates it from standard attack damage.

Bleeding enemies now have 20% additional stamina cost on all moves

Although this change isn’t extremely significant, bleed now mildly stifles enemy offense and makes their defensive options more stamina intensive, moderately improving your offensive pressure.

Chip Damage Adjustments

Chip damage as of now isn’t very significant, and is only really capitalized on by characters with variable timed heavies such as Hitokiri and characters that deal bleed to kill with chip. These adjustments iare simply to make blocking less effective and therefore incentivises going for parries or other counterattack options that can then be read and punished.

Chip damage increased from 18% to 25%
Non-enhanced light attacks now deal chip damage on block

The increase in chip damage is straightforward, and does as advertised. Applying chip damage onto non-enhanced lights helps to make blocking lights a less attractive option than going for a parry, and also somewhat compensates for the new “frame advantage from blocking lights” mechanic, preventing blocking from being too viable of an option.

Static Guard Adjustments

A big issue with static guard has always been that your guard persists for the duration of your dodge. This is extremely detrimental to undodgeable-based mixups such as Shaolin’s Qi stance. By swapping your guard to either side before dodging, 50% of the time when Shaolin makes a correct read his undodgeable heavy will still be blocked. To make these mixups function identically against both static and reflex guard heroes, this will be adjusted.

Static guard heroes when dodging now only retain their guard for the first 200ms of the dodge, and therefore no longer have an active guard stance from 200-600ms into the dodge

Out Of Stamina Changes

Stamina has always been a difficult state to balance, because at least from my perspective, it shouldn’t be a mechanic in the first place. Stamina only really exists to stifle offense, and the OOS state is particularly awful because it takes a significant amount of control away from the player. Looking at other fighting games, most don’t have a stamina system because of the aforementioned reasons, and those that do (E.g Dark Souls PVP, not a fighting game I know but whatever) at least don’t have an OOS state. Although in For Honor 2 or a spiritual successor I think the entire mechanic of stamina should be removed (or at least OOS), this would be too radical a change to implement in For Honor since we quite literally have characters designed around getting you OOS. Instead, we’ll have to look at just reducing how oppressive the OOS state currently is.

The two big issues with OOS is that getting knocked to the ground usually takes more than half your health, and stamina regen pause keeps you OOS for what seems like eons. We’ll make changes to heavily reduce these OOS punishes, as well as minimize how long

When thrown on the ground while OOS, after getting hit once, 80% damage mitigation is applied while getting up
Stamina regen pause can no longer be applied to OOS enemies
Stamina is now fully regenerated once fallen to the ground while OOS

These large nerfs to the OOS state will likely have a negative impact on characters that thrive against OOS enemies such as Centurion and Jorm, however in the grand scheme of the game they should make gameplay much healthier. With OOS being much less of a death sentence, players should be more incentivised to maintain offense pressure until low stamina, since even if put OOS by a bash or something, the enemy has a smaller window to pressure with a lower max punish.

Cent and Jorm’s OOS punishes are currently unique to FH, as they are the only OOS punishes that fully replenish the enemy’s stamina once landed. This means that while these characters can reap a large reward off of OOS enemies, the punishes are somewhat balanced out by immediately ending the OOS state. This is a mechanic I believe should be universal since there are some characters whose OOS punishes lead into potent mixups that can lead to the enemy falling to the ground a second time before regaining their stamina. In addition, a large portion of many characters’ OOS pressure is their ability to pause stamina regen, such as with Conq. This gives characters with bash-based offense a significant advantage over non-bash based characters when it comes to OOS pressure, since the former can keep opponents OOS for much longer. By eliminating OOS stamina regen pause, OOS pressure should be partially standardized and the average time any given player spends OOS should be reduced.

Stamina Changes

In addition to the adjustments we’re making to the OOS state, there are a few adjustments we need to make to stamina itself. The two issues we’re currently seeing with stamina are the low overall stamina pools across the cast which heavily limits how long offensive pressure can be sustained, and the pitifully slow stamina regeneration rate which is especially apparent when fighting enemies that can pause stamina regen. We’re going to address both of these problems with some straightforward changes.

Warden, Conqueror, Peacekeeper, Lawbringer, Black Prior, Warmonger, Warlord, Valkyrie, Highlander, Shaman, Kensei, Shugoki, Orochi, Nobushi, Aramusha, Tiandi, Jiang Jung, Nuxia, Shaolin, and Zhanhu maximum stamina pools increased to 140 (from 120)
Raider, Hitokiri, Shinobi and Jormungandr maximum stamina pools increased to 150 (from 130/135/140)
Berserker maximum stamina pool increased to 160 (from 140)

The only characters that are not receiving an increase to their maximum stamina are Centurion and Gladiator, since these characters already have 150 and 160 stamina respectively. With these adjustments across the cast, the gap between the lowest and highest stamina pools has been reduced considerably. This should allow each of these characters to sustain their offense at least slightly longer, and makes tools that deal stamina damage marginally less oppressive.

Stamina regeneration rate for all heroes except Gladiator and JJ increased to 40/s (was 30/s)
Gladiator stamina regeneration rate increased to 50/s (was 40/s)
JJ stamina regeneration rate increased to 30/s (was 22.5/s)

With the entirety of the cast having a faster stamina regeneration rate, there should be less “downtime” within matches, which encourages more sustained offensive play. This also reduces the risk of going OOS against characters with stamina regen pause and helps players get out of the OOS state faster.

Guardbreak Adjustments

Guardbreaks are mostly used in a few different scenarios: Feint GBs to catch parry attempts, dodge GBs to punish moves like bashes, and raw GBs / forward dodge GBs to synergize with bash-based offense (E.g Conq catching a prediction dodge against his bash). While the way GBs currently function is satisfactory, we can make some adjustments so that GBs play a more active role in characters’ offense while also implementing some quality of life changes that mostly benefit full population players.

Guardbreaks no longer cost any stamina

A frequent interaction when it comes to GBs are early CGB attempts. When a player attempts a CGB before the enemy GB actually connects, the player will perform the startup of a standard GB. Since GB startup doesn't have GB vulnerability, the player can still CGB the enemy’s GB despite inputting early. However, there is still a 15 stamina cost for the initial GB startup. This means that early CGB attempts can end up costing a player 15 stamina, which can accidentally send you OOS. This adjustment addresses this specific interaction by removing the stamina cost entirely, preventing early CGB attempts from having any detriment to the player. This also reduces the stamina cost of standard mixups like feint GB, giving players more leeway in their offensive mixups before running OOS.

Counter Guardbreaking now costs the player 4HP

Self-inflicted CGB damage cannot kill the player; can only reduce a player to 1HP

Counter Guardbreaks now give the player 200ms of frame advantage

With these changes, GBs now play a more pivotal role in characters’ offense while also working similarly to a blocked light with the frame advantage. With each CGB costing the player 4HP, feint GBs and other offensive mixups utilizing GBs now will essentially deal chip damage when unsuccessful. This provides additional incentive to be offensively pressuring the enemy since you will still be slowly racking up damage when the enemy reads you correctly. This also incentivizes players to be more proactively stuffing GB attempts with lights and other 100ms GB vulnerability tools, creating more active gameplay on both sides. As compensation, CGBs giving the player 200ms of frame advantage will allow players to open up their own offense.

Removing Backlights

Neutral light attacks can no longer be inputted with backwards momentum

Backlights have been a consistently strong defensive tool since the game’s launch due to the fact they cannot be parried. One example of their application would be against a Warden SB; if reacting to a Warden forward or side dodge, a backlight can interrupt an uncharged SB while also being safe from a feint GB or feint parry attempt. Some characters can go further with this interaction, such as Tiandi using his neutral light dodge cancel or Black Prior using his bulwark cancel to avoid / counter further mixups. Removing backlights

Warden

Live Game: As a vanguard, Warden is designed to be simplistic and easy to pick up, but this design has come at the cost of kit variety and a fairly low skill ceiling. This isn’t to say that Warden is bad, much the opposite in fact, but unfortunately as a result the character is fairly uninteresting, and there isn’t much difference in playstyle / gameplan between casual and competitive players. For these reasons, although I will not recommend any within this rework because of the philosophy guidelines, I believe Warden could use a new move or two.

Warden is shoulder bash. He is a vortex character that leads into the same potent mixup over and over to rack up his damage. His only other real offensive tool is his top heavy unblockable finisher, which is pretty good but is separate from his core vortex since it is too slow to contribute to choice reaction pressure. His chains are actually quite underutilized, since his chained lights are much too slow to be usable, and his finisher side heavies are mostly only used to prevent his recoveries from being GBed or in teamfights. Defensively, Warden is a little overtuned in a few areas. Although he doesn’t have any strong parry options against unblockables or side attacks, his crushing counter is overly damaging and heavily discourages enemies from using blockable attacks from top stance. In addition, shoulder bash makes a decent side dodge attack, but also provides Warden the only backdodge in the game with 400ms of GB vulnerability since it can be cancelled into SB.

Rework Design: To keep the character easy to pick up and staying true to his “vortex” design, we’re going to keep Warden’s kit built around shoulder bash. However, there are plenty of moves we can adjust so that the rest of Warden’s kit supports shoulder bash, since currently his other tools don’t really synergize with SB. The goal is that SB opens up new mixup opportunities once landed, with these new mixups leading back into SB to repeat the cycle. Basically, we’re heavily expanding Warden’s moveset flow chart while keeping SB at the centre of his identity.

Creating Viable Chain Mixups

Chained top light speed increased to 400ms (from 500ms)
Chained side light speed increased to 500ms (from 400ms)
Enhanced property added to chained lights
Shoulder bash when used in chain speed increased to 600ms (from 700ms)
Undodgeable property added to side heavy finishers
Top heavy finisher speed increased to 700ms (from 1000ms)

Currently, if Warden lands an uncharged or partially charged SB, the player will typically go for a confirmed double side light then lead back into SB or sometimes a top heavy unblockable finisher. These changes are to provide incentive for Warden players to alter their SB confirm, instead going for a top light confirm for slightly less damage in return for powerful followup pressure.

With chained lights being enhanced and more threatening in speed, chained top light in particular being unreactable, these tools now have a reasonable chance to land while also being relatively non-commital to throw out since they aren’t interrupted on block and flow right back into shoulder bash. Speeding up in-chain shoulder bash I also find to be a particularly interesting change, since successful reactions against SB as a 600ms bash doesn’t necessarily mean you avoid damage. In fact, for the SB vortex itself this speed increase doesn’t actually make the mixup any more threatening. Instead, this is a change that enables Warden’s chained lights by creating more threatening choice reaction pressure. Certain characters need to make reactions against uncharged SB in order to use some of their defensive capabilities; for example, Conq can react to uncharged shoulder bash with a side dodge shield bash, which will also interrupt a fully charged shoulder bash if Warden goes for that instead. By narrowing the reaction window for these defensive capabilities, enemies must focus for SB’s unblockable indicator which opens up opportunities to land Warden’s chained lights.

Furthermore, speeding up the top heavy unblockable to 700ms will allow it to better contribute to choice reaction pressure after an opener light, synergizing with the faster in-chain SB and chained lights. Having a faster unblockable will also make his chains more threatening in teamfights, since 700ms is fairly fast for target swapping or confirming off ally hitstun. Adding undodgeable property to his finisher side heavies isn’t a monumental change, but it gives Warden a tool to catch enemies that decide to use dodge attacks on prediction or some other prediction-based defensive options against his chained offense. This, like the top heavy unblockable change, will also give these moves a bit more utility in teamfights.

Building The Flowchart Around SB

Added heavy, light, heavy chain
Valiant breakthrough can now flow into chained lights
Valiant breakthrough can now flow into shoulder bash
Zone attack can now flow into chained lights
Zone attack can now flow into shoulder bash
Heavy finisher recovery can now be dodge cancelled

These changes are to provide better flow within Warden’s kit, allowing more of his tools to lead into his chain mixups or back into shoulder bash. You can’t currently flow back into SB after an opener heavy attack, since they only lead into finisher heavies which ends your chain. With the addition of a heavy light heavy chain, Warden can now reach SB after an opener heavy by going for his chained enhanced lights, which lead into SB or his heavy finishers. The same idea is applied with the flow from valiant breakthrough and zone attack into chained lights and SB. As mentioned in the rework design, these changes better allow Warden’s kit to always flow back to his in-chain pressure or SB. The final change to round out this flowchart is a dodge cancel after his finisher heavies, which allows Warden to decide when he’s done with his offensive pressure rather than being limited by chain finishers. Since Warden doesn’t benefit much from frame advantage after his finisher heavies since his neutral isn’t particularly potent, the ability to dodge cancel after his finishers is a more appropriate way of allowing Warden to sustain his offense. This comes with the added bonus of additional safety in teamfights!

A Few Offense Adjustments For Depth

Valiant breakthrough speed increased to 400ms (from 500ms)
Undodgeable property added to valiant breakthrough
Valiant breakthrough is now a light attack (was heavy, now uses light attack input)
Enhanced property added to valiant breakthrough
Undodgeable property added to zone attack

These changes are to provide a few additional offensive options to Warden’s kit in order to provide a bit of additional variety to his gameplay. Valiant breakthrough is currently used as a roll catcher, for chasing opponents or repositioning in a teamfight. We’re going to add a bit of offensive utility to this move so it can be used outside of these scenarios. By increasing the speed to 400ms, valiant breakthrough is now unreactable, but can be anticipated by the 300ms of forward dodge startup to access it. This transforms the move into an unreactable opener that flows into SB, chained lights or finisher heavies on block, though it doesn’t synergize with his neutral lights because of the dodge startup. Adding undodgeable property may seem redundant at first due to the move’s already insane tracking, but this forces players to make a parry attempt against the move in order to prevent Warden from accessing his chains, rather than going for a dodge attack mixup/punish. This also gives Warden a tool that catches players that make reaction dodges against his forward dodge startup, other than the standard forward dodge GB. Finally, it can now also be used in conjunction with the dodge cancel on heavy finishers to reset the Warden’s mixups. To compensate for these buffs however, changing the move to be a light attack input instead of a heavy will increase the risk of throwing the attack out.

To make the shoulder bash mixup itself a little more interesting, a hardfeint to undodgeable zone attack that leads right back into Warden’s chain mixups will provide a little more depth to his vortex, while also providing a powerful tool against dodge attacks with many i-frames, such as Kensei and Tiandi. Because of the gamewide change made to static guard mentioned in the general changes section, this mixup won’t be vulnerable to “move guard left before blocking” since the guard won’t persist for the duration of the dodge. The undodgeable property will also make Warden’s zone a more powerful option select, which is warranted considering the defensive nerfs included in this rework.

Defensive Nerfs

Shoulder bash can no longer be accessed from a back dodge
Crushing counter no longer confirms a chained top light

These nerfs are to eliminate what I consider the unhealthy parts of Warden’s kit. Crushing counter is rewarding enough on its own; having it confirm a chained light makes it overtuned and undermines the new chained mixups we’ve provided Warden. As for shoulder bash, you often see backdodge into SB as Warden’s most common defensive option as well as most common way of accessing SB since he can still pressure from afar while staying outside of the enemy’s attack range. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is particularly healthy as it often slows down the pace of combat, and having a safer backdodge than the remainder of the cast feels like a bit too much of an asset.

Damage Adjustments

Side heavy opener damage reduced to 24 (was 29)
Top heavy opener damage reduced to 28 (was 32)
Confirmed double light damage reduced to 4 (was 6)
Side heavy finisher damage reduced to 30 (was 35)
Top heavy finisher damage reduced to 28 (was 35)
Valiant breakthrough damage reduced to 14 (was 18)

These adjustments don’t need much explaining. They are to make damage feel more like it was during the testing grounds.

Final Adjustment

Uncharged and partially charged shoulder bash recovery to CGB increased by X00ms (does not confirm GB on prediction dodge)

The recovery for non-fully charged SBs has always been quite high, and is a big reason that players on live game overutilized backdodge SB feints to bait out defensive options. The risk of missing an uncharged or partially charged SB is just a bit too high compared to the confirmed damage, especially when there’s a wall nearby. Considering we’ve removed backdodge SB entirely, it seems appropriate to reduce SB’s CGB recovery to encourage continuously engaging enemies rather than playing the “bait and punish” game.

Peacekeeper

Live Game: PK is one of those heroes that is so close to being one of the best characters in the game, but ends up missing the mark due to some glaring issues. Her dagger cancel mixup is reasonably strong and surprisingly resilient to most option selects, but the fact that it can’t chain and puts PK into frame disadvantage is atrocious. The bleed effect from dagger cancel is meant to set up PK’s neutral with her now enhanced lights, but the frame disadvantage prevents the move from accomplishing its purpose. It is also worth noting that dagger cancel accessed from a top heavy is one of the game’s many “dead moves”, a tool that provides no value to the character that would be a disadvantageous option in any given scenario. She also doesn’t have any tools to deal with enemies external blocking her other than her enhanced light attacks if the enemy is bleeding, but even then she’s only really setting up blockstun for an ally to capitalize on rather than actively breaking through enemy defences. These issues with dagger cancel and dealing with externalling are what’s really holding PK back, though there are also some minor problems that need more quality of life-oriented improvements. These would include her zone attack still counting as a light parry, her dodge attack having a static input window, and her lackluster flow chart. Lastly, some of her damage numbers from the CCU don’t seem entirely appropriate, and could use some rebalancing.

Rework Design: The most significant elements of this rework are the expansions to PK’s flow chart, giving her multiple new ways to sustain her offensive pressure, and the improvements to her dagger cancel mixups. Her chain pressure in particular we’re building to one of the strongest in the game, which will provide some real followups to her enhanced lights. Despite her averageish defense, we’re building PK to be one of the strongest duelist that focuses on isolating enemies in team-based modes, while also giving her stronger teamfighting tools to ensure she plays a more prominent role outside of punishing recoveries.

Dagger Cancel Mixup Improvements

Chained heavy speed increased to 700ms (was 800ms)
Chained heavy attacks are now undodgeable
Second swing of zone attack is now undodgeable
Dagger cancel when accessed from a neutral or chained top heavy is now unblockable
Dagger cancel when accessed from the second swing of zone attack is now unblockable
Dagger cancel can now flow into chained heavies
If resetting to neutral rather than flowing into a chained heavy, dagger cancel now gives PK 200ms of frame advantage

Dagger cancel as I already mentioned is already decent offense, but could use some improvement to stand head to head with the game’s top tiers and the new meta of this document. The first step we’ll take is adding undodgeable to chained heavies and the second swing of zone attack. Currently, if PK predicts the enemy to dodge on her heavy/dagger cancel timing, her answer to that defensive option is to hard/softfeint into a GB. While she can still do this, offensive mixups become particularly potent when each offensive tool within the mixup covers multiple defensive options. So now, dodging against chained heavy dagger cancel mixup only beats the dagger cancel itself, as both the raw heavy and the feint GB will beat a dodge.

The next step is addressing PK’s dagger cancel when accessed from a top heavy, which is currently useless. By making top heavy dagger cancels unblockable, one of PK’s more significant weaknesses is solved while also giving her much more offensive depth. This will be the only mixup in the game involving a heavy that can be softfeinted into an unblockable from the same guard direction with the same parry timing. This effectively allows PK’s top heavies to unreactably turn into unblockables, which encourages the enemy to make parry attempts against the mixup, opening them up to softfeint GBs. Regarding the second swing of zone attack, this move is getting the best of both worlds. Usually this move is pretty useless outside of minion clear since its only really a weaker form of PK’s dagger cancel mixup. Now, zone’s dagger cancel becomes unblockable just like dagger cancel accessed from a top heavy, but the zone dagger cancel also comes from a different guard stance so the zone/dagger cancel can’t be covered with a single parry input like with the top heavies.

Now that dagger cancel mixups accessed from top heavies, chained heavies and zones are much more threatening, it's time to address the move’s awful flow. It unfortunately wouldn’t make sense animation-wise for dagger cancel to flow into chained lights since both moves use PK’s offhand dagger, so instead we’ll allow it to flow into chained heavies. Considering how much stronger we’ve made PK’s chained heavy dagger cancel mixups, this seems like a fair compromise. In addition, this gives PK a pseudo-infinite chain since she can endlessly flow from chained heavy dagger cancel to chained heavy dagger cancel to chained heavy dagger cancel, etc etc etc. However, since dagger cancel sets up PK’s lights to be enhanced, only having the ability to flow into chained heavies seems like a bit of a waste. We can solve this wasted opportunity by allowing PK to choose between flowing into the chained heavy, or resetting to neutral with 200ms of frame advantage to capitalize on her enhanced lights. Giving PK two different options in this scenario allows for individual playstyles to become more identifiable and flattens her matchup chart by allowing her to choose her flowchart route is more appropriate for individual characters.

Another New Flowchart Link

Confirmed deep gouge off of neutral heavies, chained heavies, or dodge attacks now flow into chained heavies

Similar to how we gave the option to dagger cancel, all of PK’s bleed stabs (other than the triple off GB) can now either reset to neutral for frame advantage or flow into her chained heavies. This again allows PK to prioritize and access whichever tools she feels will be more effective against individual players or characters,

Quality Of Life Changes

Side dodge attacks can now be inputted 300-500ms into the dodge (was static at 300ms)
First swing of zone attack now counts as a heavy parry

These changes are pretty straightforward and should make the character feel a little less clunky.

Damage adjustments

Deep gouge after neutral heavies, chained heavies and dodge attacks damage reduced to 1+8 (from 1+10)
Top heavy opener damage reduced to 18 (from 21)
Side heavy opener damage reduced to 16 (from 18)
Finisher heavy damage reduced to 20 (from 24)
Side dodge heavy damage increased to 7 (from 5)
Forward dodge heavy damage decreased to 15 (from 18)
Deflect followup damage increased to 12+16 damage (was 8+12)
Guardbreak triple bleed stab damage reduced to 1+4, 1+4, 1+12 (was 2+8, 2+8, 2+16)

Most of these damage adjustments are to reduce heavy attack damage, which you’ll see in all reworks. The largest reduction was to the GB followup which is still abruptly overtuned on live game. It now deals only 23 damage, which is 2 less than a confirmed side heavy but with a larger ratio of bleed damage to set up enhanced light attack pressure. Her deflect is also getting a significant buff, as the higher risk of going for deflect attempts deserves a higher punish than parry followups.

Conqueror

Live Game: Conqueror is one of the best duelists in the game and a decent 4s pick as well. He’s also one of the worst designed heroes in the game, and let’s start explaining why with his offense. His offensive pressure is entirely limited to his neutral. Between his forward dodge bash and 500ms lights now being respectively decent at creating choice reaction pressure, his neutral pressure is fairly good. The real strength from his neutral on live game comes from the stamina regeneration pause on his forward dodge bash. This allows Conq to keep the enemy low stamina or OOS to maintain offensive pressure with less risk of retaliation or interrupts. However, with this document’s general changes to stamina and the OOS state, this strength won’t be as relevant with his rework. In addition, an enormous weakness with his neutral offense is Conq’s inability to chase down rolls or enemies that avoid engaging.

Conq’s neutral isn’t meant to be his sole source of offense however, he also has his infinite chain and charged heavy mixups. Conq’s infinite chain may potentially be the worst chain pressure in the game. His chains lights are only bi-directionally 500ms, since light attacking from the same guard twice throws the slowest light in the game at 900ms, so enemies should be blocking your lights 50% of the time instead of 33%, disregarding reactions. His chained bash is also possibly the worst bash in the game. An 800ms bash with no special properties that nearly every dodge attack can punish and confirms a measly 12 damage. His softfeint bash from heavies also isn’t actually offense since its also 800ms, and is only really used to punish players for attempting to parry your heavies.

Conq’s charged heavy mixups do actually have some offensive pressure, but not in the way the devs intended. The actual mixup of charged unblockable heavy / softfeint bash doesn’t work against backdodge backroll and Conq doesn’t have the tools to punish that option, so the mixup never works if the enemy doesn’t want it to. However, pressing GB while charging a heavy uses Conq’s softfeint bash without any heavy attack startup, and using this in conjunction with some unintended flicker tech and dodge cancels into forward dodge bash, Conq does have some mixups out of this stance, though they still lose to roll.

On the flip side, Conq’s defense has been nerfed repeatedly and yet is still one of the best in the game. His charged heavy option select is nowhere near how powerful it used to be, but still provides pretty consistently low-risk light parry attempts since if an indicator turned out to be a heavy you can still block it. The superior block on Conq’s heavy start-up also allows him to parry light / superior block heavy on the same timing so long that the heavy isn’t too slow, though this is inconsistent since successful superior blocks aren’t unblockable. Conq’s superior block on dodge is also excellent for covering both lights and heavies, especially since he can mix in his side dodge bash to beat feint GB which is arguably the best dodge attack in the game. Then he also has zone attack and full block, which are both low damage and moderately high risk but still very valuable, as well as advanced defensive tech such as insta-fullblock and dodge selects. Overall, Conq’s defense is still relatively overtuned and will need some adjustments to compensate for any buffs to his offense.

Viable Infinite Chain

Same side chained lights speed increased to 500ms (was 900ms)
Chained side heavies speed increased to 700ms (was 800ms)
Chained top heavies speed increased to 800ms (was 900ms)
Chained heavies now how superior block properties 100-500ms into their animations
In-chain bash speed increased to 700ms (was 800ms)
In-chain bash can now be hardfeinted 400ms into the animation
In-chain bash can now be softfeinted into full block stance 400ms into the animation
In-chain bash now counts as a chain starter (confirms chained light)
Softfeint bash out of heavy attacks speed increased to 600ms (was 800ms)
Softfeint bash out of heavy attacks indicator is now hidden for the first 100ms of the animation (similar to storming tap)
All light and heavy attacks can now cancel their recovery into full block stance 200ms into their recovery (was like 700ms or something stupid high)

Considering Conq’s infinite chain is so bad it's almost always non-optimal to use, we’ll need to make plenty of changes in order for it to be actually threatening. Starting with Conq’s chained 900ms same-side light, there’s no reason for this to be in the game and doesn’t even make much sense from a “muh realism” perspective. Speeding this up to 500ms gives Conq tri-directional 500ms chained lights, which is the standard for all other characters in the game.

Next we need to address Conq’s chained bash. We’ll keep it relatively slow and reactable since there are plenty of quick in-chain bashes in the game already, and it would be more interesting to add more identity to this move. Instead, we’ll give the bash the ability to be hardfeinted and softfeinted into full block stance. This provides a very interesting mixup; when dodging the chained bash, you may predict a feint GB and try to stuff it with a dodge attack, only to attack into Conq’s full block instead. This also means Conq can bait a dodge by hardfeinting his chained bash, and if the enemy doesn’t dodge attack, Conq can punish the dodge recovery on reaction with a forward dodge bash. This creates incentive to stay still and anticipate the bash feint, opening up the enemy to raw chained bashes.

For Conq’s softfeint bash, as I mentioned it currently provides no offensive pressure due to its speed. We’ll make the straightforward change of increasing its speed to 600ms so that it is a more difficult reaction, while it will still be slow enough to have a different dodge timing than Conq’s heavies. However, since a 600ms bash as a softfeint out of heavies is still too slow to catch players off guard, having 100ms of hidden indicator will make the move’s indicator unreactable but the animation / voice line reactable. Including the increase in speed to Conq’s chained side heavies, this bash should now be able to somewhat synergize with Conq’s chained lights for some decent pressure.

The final few adjustments to Conq’s infinite chain will start with his full block recovery cancels. Conq is currently able to cancel his recoveries this way, but the cancel occurs so late into the recoveries that there isn’t really a purpose for it. By allowing the cancel to occur much earlier, Conq should be able to proactively cover his recoveries from dodge attacks or external enemies looking for a punish / interrupt. To keep with the shift in Conq’s design of proactive defense rather than reactive defense, adding superior block properties to his chained heavies allows Conq to continue to offensively pressure while defending himself from external interrupt attempts.

Charged heavy stance no longer links to shield uppercut with GB input
Conq can now continue to charge heavies while dodging

Must be using the dodge cancel from charged heavy stance in order to continue charging throughout the dodge. Cannot enter charged stance during a neutral dodge
When forward or side dodging while in charged heavy stance, pressing GB will release a standard dodge shield bash

Uncharged or partially charged heavies out of charged heavy stance are now undodgeable

Lawbringer

Chain adjustments

Neutral, chained and finisher top light speed increased to 366ms (from 400/500ms)
Top light finisher damage reduced to 15 (from 20)
Chained and finisher side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Top heavy finisher speed increased to 900ms (from 1100ms)
Chained top heavy damage reduced to 30 (from 35)
Swift justice finisher damage reduced to 5 (from 12)

Moveset links

Neutral light now leads into finisher heavies (was chained heavies)

Light riposte is not affected by this change

Light, heavy, heavy chain removed
Longarm is now a chain starter (confirms a chained side heavy)
Zone attack / make way can now flow into chained shove
Blind justice now counts as the second heavy in chain, and flows into finisher lights and finisher heavies in addition to chained shove

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to chained heavies
Hyperarmor added to blind justice starting 300ms into the animation
Hyperarmor added to zone attack starting 300ms into the animation

Offense adjustments

Longarm forward tracking increased to match animation
Longarm speed increased to 900ms (from 1000ms)
Longarm recovery reduced to X00ms (from like 2000ms; GB no longer confirmed on dodge, still vulnerable to dodge attacks)
Longarm can now be hardfeinted 400ms before the end of the animation
Side heavy after longarm is no longer unsafe on hit
Chained shove now comes out 200ms faster in chain

Chained shove can be delayed up until its current timing, from the adjusted timing 200ms earlier

Chained shove speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Shove block recovery increased by 200ms
Shove can now be properly target swapped in all 360 degrees
Forward dodge shove speed increased to 466ms (from 700ms)

Side dodge shove remains at 700ms
Dodge startups on side and forward dodge shove remains the same (300ms)

Zone attack damage increased to 25 (from 20)

Defense adjustments

Make way damage increased to 25 (from 22)
Blind justice damage reduced to 35 (from 38)
Zone attack recovery reduced to equivalent of make way’s recovery
Parry counter impale speed reduced to 700ms

Lawbringer, what’s the problem?

The Lawbringer rework certainly made him viable, but it did not change him to be a healthier character. As it stands, LB is still one of the most oppressive defensive characters in the game with parry punishes that heavily discourage attacking due to their absurd reward. His parry punishes are also poorly designed outside of raw damage, as there is often an optimal followup for any given situation rather than each followup having their own distinctive strengths (e.g you would never pick make way over light riposte on a heavy parry in a 1v1 due to higher stamina cost and no followups with only a 2 damage difference, and you wouldn’t pick either of these options if there is a wall you can impale into). Side dodge shove is also one of the best dodge attacks in the game, being one of the most consistent due to the nature of side dodge bashes, and one of the safest due to hyperarmor to trade with followups and extremely low recovery that makes it borderline unpunishable for some characters even on correct read.
Offensively, Lawbringer has almost 0 neutral pressure due to an extremely reactable forward dodge shove and no other offensive neutral tools other than top light. The enhanced property on his side lights is nice, especially for setting up gank combos with block stun, but his neutral lights only lead into a chained heavy which has no significant pressure, as chained heavies don’t provide and versatility outside of punishing prediction dodges against shove, and since a shove can’t be chained after a neutral light it provides nothing. His in chain pressure is pretty respectable if a stun has been applied, but without stun his lights are still reactable (block top react to sides), and chained shove comes out too slow to properly synergize with his chains. The long delay on chained shove also hurts LB’s teamfighting, as it comes out too slow to trade with punish attempts against heavy attack recoveries. His zone attack and longarm are also too attuned to 4v4; zone attack is one of the best mid clear tools as it has extremely little recovery and an alright hitbox, but its underwhelming in 1v1 since it provides no versatility or pressure and is one of the weakest zone option selects in the game (700ms with no special properties but only 20 damage). Longarm even after the nerfs is still a good 4v4 tool for punishing recoveries and ganks, but does not provide anything for 1v1.

Lawbringer, why is this the solution?

Parry punishes are rebalanced to be much more reasonable in terms of damage, but are now designed so that certain followups no longer simply outclass others in certain scenarios. On heavy parry, the choice between light riposte and make way can now vary, as the 5 extra damage as well as shove pressure afterwards at the cost of additional stamina can better compete with light riposte in 1v1. On light parry, the swift justice finisher on blind justice may not be the go to followup to blind justice now that it can access the deepest parts of LB’s chain, or impale may be chosen for slightly more damage at the cost of slightly less followup pressure. With hyperarmor on blind justice, LB will also be able to confirm his light parry followup more consistently without being interrupted, which can now better compete with make way in teamfights. With better parry followup variety, max light parry punish being reduced from 50 to 40, and max heavy parry punish being reduced from 40 to 25, LB can maintain his identity as “the parry character” while being much healthier in this aspect.
LB’s chains can now pose much more of a threat when the enemy isn’t stunned with faster in-chain side lights and finisher top light for more dangerous choice reaction pressure. Neutral lights leading into finisher heavies instead of chained heavies also provides purpose to the enhanced property on side lights, giving quick access to unblockable pressure. With undodgeable property on chained heavies and less delay on in-chain shove, chained heavies can now more efficiently serve their purpose for punishing prediction dodges against shove. The top heavy finisher can also provide better 1v1 pressure at 900ms, with a reasonable damage nerf to justify the speed increase.
With shove having 200ms more block recovery, the move will remain as a low risk tool while decreasing cases of LB being able to parry dodge attack punish attempts against him, and make it a bit easier to punish on correct reads. With forward dodge shove being 466ms, LB will also have a bit more neutral pressure that is unreactable for all levels of play and give this move more of a purpose in his kit.
Zone attack’s extremely low recovery skewed this tool too much in favor of 4v4 modes. With an increase in recovery to the equivalent of make way (make way currently has more reasonable recovery than neutral zone), this move will be a bit less of a struggle to deal with when contesting a LB in mid lane. As compensation, by allowing zone attack (and make way) to flow into chained shove, LB can still attempt to intercept punish attempts but with higher risk. This also introduces better kit flow, introducing another way for LB to access his finishers. The addition of hyperarmor and increased damage will make the move a stronger option select, better balancing out the fact it is a free parry on read every time at 700ms. These changes should make zone attack a strong tool in both gamemodes, without being as oppressive as it currently is in 4v4.
Longarm currently cannot be used in 1v1 due to its extreme reactability, absurd recovery, and surprisingly short range considering the animation, not even allowing it to punish whiffs as a spacing tool. With these changes, longarm can be an actual mixup with the ability to hardfeint it, and can better work as a whiff punish with better forward tracking and slightly faster speed. The ability to hardfeint longarm also provides good external pressure in 4v4, giving the tool more versatility without overtuning it.

Centurion (based on testing grounds)

Chain adjustments

Added heavy, light, light chain
Added heavy, light, heavy chain
Chained light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained side light damage decreased to 15 (from 17)
Finisher light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Finisher light damage decreased to 13 (from 17)
Fully charged neutral heavy damage decreased to 25 (from 30)

Moveset links

Forward dash heavy now confirms an uncharged punch on hit/block
Uncharged punch confirms a light finisher (13 damage; was chained light for 17)
Light finisher no longer leads into punch mixup

Unsure if it currently flows into punch, this point is just for if it does

Charged punch feint into GB tracking improved (backdash after heavy block or light hit no longer puts you out of range for feint GB)
Removed delay to access chained heavies from throw, chained fully charged heavy now consistently confirmed on wallbounce
Fully charged heavies now confirm an uncharged punch into finisher light (13 damage)
Side dodges can now be cancelled into punch 300ms into the animation with GB input

Punch is still chargeable/feintable when initiated out of side dodge

Special properties

Hyper armor property on forward dodge heavy now starts 200ms into the animation (was 400ms)
Hyper armor property added to zone attack starting 100ms into the second swing
Unblockable property added to third swing of zone attack
Fully charged heavies now break hyperarmor on hit
Enhanced property added to neutral, chained and finisher lights

Offense adjustments

Uncharged punch stamina damage decreased to 20 (from 30)
Fully charged punch stamina damage decreased to 30 (from 40)
Eagle's talon's damage reduced to 40 (from 45)
First swing of zone attack damage increased to 20 (from 17)
Second swing of zone attack damage increased to 28 (from 17)
Third swing of zone attack damage increased to 36 (from 17)
Zone attack feints now occur 400ms before the end of the next swing (e.g, feinting after the first swing will show the indicator of the startup of the second swing)
Kick speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)
Kick can now be initiated as early as 200ms into forward dodge (was 300ms)
Triple bash GB combo stamina damage is now divided as 10-10-45 (from 15-15-35)
Forward dash heavy is now feintable
Forward dash heavy can now be initiated 100-500ms out of forward dodge (was 200-500ms)
Forward dash heavy speed increased to 800ms (was 900ms)

Defense adjustments

Uncharged heavies now have 100ms of GB vulnerability (from 300ms)
Parry counter input window widened (can now parry counter on reaction to successful parry)

Centurion, what’s the problem?

Centurion’s rework takes many steps in the right direction to bring the character closer to his intended design as a turtle breaker, however many moves that deserve changes have been left untouched, and some steps were actually taken backwards, such as the delay from throw to access chained heavies. With pins no longer confirming anything, they no longer serve a purpose in Cent’s kit outside of extra hit stun to set up an ally heavy.

Centurion, why is this the solution?

Kick can now provide Cent with better pressure in the neutral at 466ms, but relies on its very respectable delay window rather than raw neutral speed due to its 200ms dodge startup.
The increase in speed to chained and finisher lights is welcome, but still underwhelming at 500ms, especially since Cent doesn’t have a heavy light combo to safely access them. Increasing the chained lights to 466ms gives them more choice reaction pressure, and 366ms on finisher lights rewards Cent with unreactable offense for reaching the end of his chain. Decreases in chained and finisher light damage is to compensate for their faster speed. The introduction of heavy light heavy and heavy light light chains also gives Cent better kit flow and an easier time in accessing his chained lights, especially in conjunction with his lights having enhanced property.
Fully charged heavies in their reworked state no longer feel like a unique mechanic to Cent and more just regular heavies with extra hit stun. By allowing them to pierce hyperarmor attacks, they are given more utility and can more easily deal with HA option selects such as Hitokiri neutral heavies. With uncharged punch only confirming a 13 damage finisher light, having fully charged heavies confirm an uncharged punch gives the moves more appropriate damage without returning Cent’s cutscene or giving overtuned damage values (38 on neutral fully charged heavy, 43 on chained). This confirm also allows Cent to decide between a confirmed 13 damage that ends his chain, or an unconfirmed chained light or charged punch mixup.
Forward dodge heavy on Cent is still extremely underwhelming with very situational uses. By increasing its speed, speeding up HA startup, decreasing the minimum dodge startup and allowing it to confirm an uncharged punch on hit/block turns the move into a viable mixup from neutral.
Zone attack being feintable was not enough to make the move viable, especially with such a substantial damage nerf. By increasing the tool’s damage progressively throughout its swings, adding HA starting during the second swing and unblockable to the third, there is now much more threat to just attempting to block each swing.
Uncharged heavies having 100ms of GB vulnerability allows them to once again be used to stuff GBs.
Charged punch feint into GB not connecting against backdash when accessed off of a blocked heavy or neutral light just limits its potential as an offensive tool. Increasing the GB tracking solves this issue.
Centurion still doesn’t have any tools to deal with bashes. By allowing side dodges to be cancelled into punch, Cent now can punish bashes as well as have an additional mixup to access from neutral.

Gladiator

Chain adjustments

Added heavy, light, heavy chain
Added heavy, light, light, heavy chain
Added heavy, light, light, light, heavy chain
Chained top light #1 speed increased to 366ms (from 433ms)
Chained top light #2 speed increased to 366ms (from 433ms)
Light finisher speed increased to 366ms (from 466/433ms)
Chained light #1 damage decreased to 14 (from 15)
Chained light #2 damage decreased to 13 (from 15)
Finisher light damage decreased to 12 (from 15)
Chained heavy speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Neutral heavy damage decreased to 25 (from 30)

Special properties

Bee’s sting now has undodgeable property
Crowd pleaser now has undodgeable property
Chained heavies now have undodgeable property

Moveset links

Chained heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into toe stab
Skewer can now be softfeinted into a toe stab
Sucker punch can now flow into toe stab (unconfirmed)
Sucker punch can now flow into chained lights #1 (unconfirmed)
Counter jab (parry followup) now flows into toe stab (unconfirmed)
Counter jab now flows into chained lights #1 (unconfirmed)
Counter jab can now wallsplat (confirms a neutral heavy if so)
Bamboozle can now be accessed after any neutral or chained heavy (GB input without backstrafe)
Bamboozle now counts as a chain starter, flows into chained heavies and lights #1 (nothing confirmed)
Bamboozle can now flow into toe stab (unconfirmed)
Second swing of zone attack can now flow into a chained heavy

Offense adjustments

Bamboozle in-chain has a consistently different dodge timing than toe stab finisher (Bamboozle is 700ms vs toe stab is 466ms, shouldn’t be an issue)
Bamboozle stamina damage decreased to 30 (from 50)
Bamboozle recovery reduced to equivalent of LB shove on live game (GB / non-bash based dodge attacks 800ms or slower not confirmed on prediction dodge)
Bamboozle knockback on successful hit reduced to equivalent of sucker punch
Bamboozle can now wallsplat (confirms a skewer if so)
Sucker punch recovery reduced by X00ms (GB not confirmed on reaction dodge)
Forward dodge sucker punch speed increased to 400ms (from 600ms)
Forward dodge sucker punch dodge startup reduced to 200ms (from 300ms)

Side dodge sucker punch still has 300ms of dodge startup

Skewer can now break hyperarmor
Skewer speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)
Neutral toe stab speed increased to 566ms (from 600ms)
Toe stab in chain or when softfeinted speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)
Toe stab GB recovery reduced to X00ms (GB not confirmed on reaction dodge)
Zone attack first swing speed increased to 566ms (from 600ms)
Zone attack second swing damage reduced to 17 (from 20)
Second swing of zone attack speed decreased to 700ms (from 600ms, still guaranteed)

Backdodging zone no longer guarantees second swing if guard wasn’t on right side

Bee’s sting / crowd pleaser damage reduced to 17 (from 20)

Gladiator, what’s the problem?

Gladiator is currently one of the worst heroes in the game in both 1v1 and 4v4 due to many dead moves present in his kit, and tools meant to be core to his character only being mediocre at best. In the neutral, zone attack is almost Glad’s sole initiation tool due to being reasonably safe offense, but at 600ms it provides little actual pressure and functions better as one of the best option selects in the game. If your guard isn’t in right stance and you backdodge Glad zone, the second hit will also be guaranteed, which is clunky. Toe stab is very poor as initiation, as it is simply a worse version of zone in the neutral and Glad doesn’t have good chains to synergize with it when chained. At 600ms it is very reactable, it only deals 10 damage which is minimal reward, and it has high enough recovery to be GB punished consistently. When an enemy is OOS, the slow down makes it unusable offensively, and the knockdown effect only really boosts some of his OOS punishes. Toe stab’s drawbacks prevent it from being a valuable tool in Glad’s kit, and severely limits his neutral and chained pressure. Sucker punch when initiated out of side dodge is a consistent punish tool (as is the nature of side dodge bashes), but doesn’t confirm damage or even lead into decent pressure. The reactability and non-existent reward of forward dodge sucker punch further limits Gladiator’s ability to initiate in the neutral.
Gladiator has some of the worst chains in the game, with a contender for being the absolute worst in the game being his four hit light chain. With each of his chained lights being 600ms despite his neutral being 500ms, they provide 0 offensive pressure and are pretty much parry bait. They also can only currently be accessed after a neutral light, limiting their versatility even if they were decent. His chained heavies don’t provide pressure since they don’t synergize with anything, as does his chained toe stab which is the only tool in chain that the enemy needs to look out for, making it pretty consistently punished.
Between guard break immune heavies from neutral and a very potent zone option select, Glad’s strong parry game skews him in favor of defensive play rather than his intended offensive playstyle.
Moves such as Bamboozle and counter jab are dead moves in Glad’s kit, with bamboozle being borderline impossible to access and land, and counterjab being an inferior followup to a parry in all situations due to confirming no damage or leading into followup pressure.

Gladiator, why is this the solution?

By increasing toe stab’s speed to 466ms, Glad now has a consistent opener from neutral and in chain who’s pressure increases the viability of the rest of his kit. With less recovery, the risk/reward of the move is skewed further into Glad’s favor and should make the move slightly less of a suicide attempt to use in 4v4. A slight increase in the speed of his zone attack will also allow it to land more consistently when used offensively, with a slight damage nerf to decrease its reward when used as an option select. The ability to chain after zone attack also improves kit flow, and drastically improves the move’s versatility when used in 4v4, as currently zone attack will be hard punished due to its high recovery after the second swing. With forward dodge sucker punch being unreactable, Glad also now has a consistent tool to access his chains, without being too oppressive as it confirms no damage.
Glad’s four hit light combo is now a very potent chain with clear progression in offensive pressure the deeper he can get into the chain, as well with access from a neutral heavy with new chains. By decreasing neutral side heavy speeds to 800ms, some of his neutral parry game is decreased, but compensated by a faster chained heavy for less GB vulnerability in teamfights and added offensive pressure. With toe stab being mostly unreactable, the undodgeable property on chained heavies also synergizes well with this newfound offensive pressure and its ability to softfeint into toe stab. Bamboozle in-chain can now catch prediction dodges against toe stab after a neutral or chained heavy, also allowing his chain to be extended with increased potency due to its stun effect.
QoL changes such as reflex guard duration extended, skewer breaking HA, and undodgeable property on bee’s sting and crowd pleaser provides more consistency to the character and improves kit dynamic.

Black Prior

Chain adjustments

Chained lights and chained heavies can now be delayed 200ms longer
Chained light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

Moveset links

Forward dodge shield bash no longer counts as a chain starter

Confirms a neutral light attack rather than chained light
Chained bash still counts as a chain starter to prevent infinite bash light bash light

Hawk’s charge no longer counts as a chain starter
Chained heavies can now be softfeinted into hawk’s charge like neutral heavies
Bulwark slash can now be softfeinted into hawk’s charge like neutral heavies

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to forward dodge heavy
Enhanced property added to chained lights

Offense adjustments

Hawk’s charge speed increased to 566ms (from 700ms)
Hawk’s charge can now wallsplat (confirms a neutral side heavy if so)
Hawk’s charge recovery reduced to equivalent of live game LB shove
Forward dodge shield bash speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained bash speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained heavy damage reduced to 32 (from 35)
Sprint attack speed increased to 700ms (from 1000ms)

Defense adjustments

Superior blocks with forward dodge heavy damage increased to 25 (from 20)
Bulwark counter when accessed out of bulwark stance now has 200ms of startup (was 100ms)

Bulwark counter from neutral is still 200ms

Black Prior, what’s the problem?

Black prior is one of the better designed heroes in for honor, with a few different offensive and defensive tools to create varied initiation and defense. Some tools however are only mediocre, with others being a little overtuned. Hawk’s charge as a softfeint isn’t very good due to its high recovery and slow speed, making it only really decent to punish regular parry attempts against his heavies. It’s presence on only neutral heavies also feels misplaced, as his more threatening heavies could benefit much more from this softfeint (bulwark slash and chained heavies). His chained offense can be difficult to access its true potency as well, as after a neutral heavy he does not have access to chained tenebris rising to synergize with his undodgeable heavies. His chains in general can feel clunky to use since they can barely be delayed, which also reduces their mixup potential. His core offensive tool, tenebris rising, only leads into bulwark slash after the chained light followup, which limits maintained offense, while also having less than ideal synergy with his zone attack, where buffered tenebris rising and zone do not consistently have different dodge timings. The issue of chained tenebris rising being guaranteed on slow guardswaps against neutral lights is a clear issue that needs to be fixed.

Black Prior, why is this the solution?

By changing tenebris rising from neutral to guarantee a neutral light instead of chained light, BP now can access his chained offense at its most potent from his bash. This slightly decreases the reward of the bash itself, while heavily improving its followup pressure for sustained offense. With hawk’s charge also no longer counting as a chain starter, being faster and more accessible, his chained offense will be further easier to access while improving the offensive pressure of his chained heavies and bulwark slash. With added delay on his chained attacks (and fixing guaranteed chained tenebris) and enhanced property on chained lights for sustained offense, the increase in offensive potency warrants a decrease in chained heavy damage for more reasonable mixups.
The increase in bulwark counter startup out of bulwark stance is to prevent BP from reacting to attacks that would otherwise be unreactable for the rest of the cast.

Raider

Chain adjustments

Light heavy light chain added
Chained top and left side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500/600ms)
Chained right side light speed decreased to 533ms (from 500ms)
Finisher top and left side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500/700ms)
Finisher right side light speed decreased to 533ms (from 500ms)
Finisher top light damage decreased to 18 (from 22)

Special properties

Unblockable property added to chained and finisher right side light

Moveset links

Storming tap now acts as the first hit in chain (was second hit)

Offense adjustments

Storming tap damage increased to 18 (from 15)
Storming tap speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

366ms indicator due to hidden indicator property (from 400ms)

Storming tap input changed to heavy (was light)

Storming tap now only grants a heavy parry stun (was light)
Storming tap is now enhanced
Does not execute

Raider’s fury speed increased to 900ms (from 1000ms)
Raider’s fury damage decreased to 40 (from 44)
Raider’s storm damage increased to 30 (from 28)
Raider’s storm speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)
Sprinting heavy attack damage reduced to 30 (from 35)

Other changes

Storming tap no longer skips frames during its animation

Raider, what’s the problem?

The nerf to Raider’s stunning tap was very significant, as the stun effect was what facilitated his chained offence’s potency. Without it, his chained offense is essentially the same as his neutral but with a stronger zone and HA heavies. His chained lights are now very underwhelming on their own, especially with a 600 and 700ms chained and finisher top light which are both unusable. Despite my personal opinion being the stun should have stayed, this rework will respect the devs’ position on the topic as the effect did cause many frustrations to a large portion of the community. In order to balance Raider now however, storming tap must now be tuned in a way where it is a strong tool on its own while still acting as a strong opener since it no longer enhances his chains, and his chained offense without the support of the stun effect must also be tuned to provide pressure independently.

Raider, why is this the solution?

Adjusting storming tap to act as a heavy (minus the execute property), increasing its damage and making it truly unreactable for top players, the tool now has much less risk, is rewarding on its own even if followups don’t land, and better provides access to his chains through the enhanced property. Changing it to lead into the first hit of his chain instead of his finishers also provides better kit flow. Fixing the animation to no longer skip frames is a no-brainer.
By providing unblockable property to chained and finisher right side lights, these lights can now synergize with Raider’s chained zone similar to how Zhanghu’s finishers function. By setting the speed of the light to 533ms, it is a consistent reaction parry for the entirety of the community while also being fast enough to be difficult to distinguish from the zone, especially as choice reaction pressure. The increased speed to left and top chained and finisher lights help divert focus away from the unblockable light, in addition to the stronger storming tap from chained heavies and zone. These changes make Raider’s chained offense threatening even without the stun effect.

Warlord

Chain adjustments

Neutral top light speed increased to 500ms (from 600ms)
Chained side light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Chained side light damage reduced to 13 (from 15)
Neutral side heavy damage reduced to 33 (from 35)
Chained side heavy damage reduced to 35 (from 40)
Chained top heavy damage reduced to 30 (from 35)

Special properties

Helmsplitter now has undodgeable property
Chained top heavy now has undodgeable property
Full block “board and blade” no longer has undodgeable property
Full block “board and blade” now unblockable property after successfully blocking an attack

Moveset links

Neutral heavies, chained heavies, and zone attack can now link into headbutt (no dodge startup, GB input)
Headbutt follow-up stab now flows into chained lights and heavies (does not flow into chained headbutt)
Zone can now link into heavy finisher
Added link to zone attack after helmsplitter on hit/whiff/block
Added link to zone from side dodge between 300-500ms into the animation
Added link to full block from chained lights on hit/whiff/block
Added link to full block from chained heavies on hit/whiff/block
Full block “block and stab” now flows into chained lights, chained heavies, and chained headbutt

Offense adjustments

Headbutt speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Helmsplitter is now feintable
Helmsplitter can now be accessed as early as 100ms into forward dodge (was 300ms)
Helmsplitter hyperarmor now starts 300ms into the animation (was 500ms)
Crashing charge speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Crashing charge can no longer wallsplat

Defense adjustments

Shield bash parry riposte damage increased to 22 (from 15)
Shield bash parry riposte input window extended by X00ms (can now be used on reaction to a parry)
Full block “block and stab” damage increased to 22 (from 15)
Full block exit recovery to CGB decreased to 400ms (from 600ms)
Full block exit recovery to dodge increased to 200ms (from 0ms)

Wardlord, what’s the problem?

Warlord is currently in a pretty poor position due to limited defensive abilities and extremely lacking offense. In the neutral, headbutt is Warlord’s only opener, which isn’t very strong due to lack of synergy with his other tools. His neutral lights don’t pose much of a threat, especially with a 600ms neutral top light that limits choice reaction pressure. His chains provide nothing, as his chained lights are very reactable and he has no other chained tools to provide pressure, not that he can even access his chains in the first place due to lack of openers. Lack of kit flow with a zone that doesn’t chain and headbutt only leading back into neutral further hurst WL’s mixup potential. Hyperarmor on his heavies activates too slow to consistently trade, his full block is quite bad due to lack of decent confirmed followups, and the nerfs to crashing charge removed all of WL’s OOS pressure. As of now, Warlord is a very bare bones character with no unique or strong tools to differentiate himself from the rest of the cast.

Warlord, why is this the solution?

Fixing Warlord’s chains is a must; by adding enhanced property to WL’s neutral lights and increasing the speed of his neutral top light, he now has a consistent way to access his chains and pressure in the neutral. 366ms chained side lights will now provide real threat to Warlord’s chains, and gives the hyperarmor on his chained heavies more of a purpose by forcing more prediction parries. Introducing a chained headbutt to synergize with these lights further strengthens his chains, and undodgeable property on chained top heavy to catch prediction dodges reduces the enemies defensive options against his newfound pressure. By making headbutt a chain starter, WL can now sustain offense off of headbutt, making it a more threatening neutral option. Finally, by adding links to full block from his finishers, Warlord will be much safer in teamfights where his recoveries would usually limit his ability to attack.
With faster hyperarmor on neutral and chained heavies as well as helmsplitter, attacking into Warlord will become more dangerous as he will be able to more consistently land trades.
Full block consistently confirming board and blade quickly changes this move from being dead weight in WL’s kit to a usable defensive tool.
By returning crashing charge to being an unreactable move but removing its ability to wall splat, CC won’t be used in the neutral as it once was but its OOS pressure will be returned if WL chooses to go for it over his chains

Note: The general duel change of healing locking on enemies for 2hp/s when unlocking (see top of document) creates a major drawback for going for this OOS pressure, as failed CC attempts will significantly heal the OOS enemy, preventing the move from being as oppressive as it was before its nerfs.

Berserker

Chain adjustments

Neutral top light speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)
Neutral top light after feint speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Neutral side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Neutral side light after feint speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Chained light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Chained light damage decreased to 13 (from 15)
Top heavy finisher speed increased to 700ms (from 900ms)
Finisher side heavy damage decreased to 38 (from 45)
Chained side heavy damage decreased to 33 (from 35)
Neutral side heavy damage decreased to 28 (from 33)
Neutral top heavy damage decreased to 35 (from 38)

Moveset links

Chained heavy attacks in infinite chain now count as the second heavy attack in bear mauler

To clarify: Chained heavies in the infinite chain currently lead into another chained heavy before the side unblockable finisher. Now, chained heavy attacks in infinite chain lead straight into the unblockable side heavy finisher

Forward dodge heavy attack can now be softfeinted into a dodge
Backwards zone attack recovery can now be cancelled with a dodge
Zone and backwards zone attacks can now flow into chained side heavies or top heavy finisher
Skilled slash now chains into side heavy finisher

Special properties

Forward dodge light attack is now enhanced

Offense adjustments

Neutral heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into a dodge 200-400ms into the animation (was static at 400ms)
Forward dodge light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)
Forward dodge heavy speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)
Spin chop damage decreased to 15 (from 17)
Backwards zone attack damage increased to 15-12-12 (from 8-8-8)

Berserker, what’s the problem?

Zerk is a well designed character with a very high skill ceiling and with each tool in his kit serving some sort of purpose (with the exception of backwards zone attack). There are some parts of his kit that are a tad bit weaker than they have the potential to be, such as his neutral top light before or after a feint being too slow to truly pressure an enemy, his forward dash light functioning to roll catch but lacking in offensive pressure otherwise, and skilled slash being most often an inferior followup to heavy parry than zone as a few examples. His unblockables aren’t used as often as other parts of his kit either, not because they are bad by any means but since his top heavy unblockable deals low damage for its speed and side heavy finishers being somewhat difficult to access. His damage is also a little overtuned for his strengths, making successful reads too rewarding for the offensive pressure involved in his kit.

Berserker, why is this the solution?

Damage nerfs to neutral heavies, chained and finisher side heavies will decrease some of Zerk’s stronger punishes, requiring a few extra hits to secure a kill. As compensation for these damage increases, additional offensive tools and QoL changes will allow Zerk to make up for his lost damage with skilled play. With neutral top light matching his side light speeds, his neutral pressure will be greatly improved, especially at high levels of play where high reaction speed players could still somewhat deal with Zerk’s feint mixups. Granting a variable dodge softfeint window on Zerk’s neutral heavies allows Zerk to go more parry attempts into deflect attempts more consistently, as well as provide additional safety in teamfights and mixup potential with his dodge attacks. Allowing neutral and chained heavies to cancel their recovery with a dodge when blocked grants additional safety as well. With a 466ms enhanced forward dash light, Zerk’s dodge cancels will also now be able to provide more offensive capabilities rather than simply defensive applications.
To make Zerk’s unblockables a more attractive option in his kit, increasing the top heavy finisher’s speed to 700ms while keeping its damage at 30 makes it much more threatening without simply adding damage to the move. It can now synergize better with his infinite chain as a quick pressure option. His side heavy finisher was often too difficult to access in chain due to the requirement of two chained heavies prior to it, so by having all chained heavies count as the second heavy of the bear mauler chain, finisher side heavies will be a much more present and threatening part of Zerk’s kit. Due to the additional ease of access, a damage nerf to the side heavy finisher is also warranted.
Allowing zone attack and backwards zone attack to chain into heavy attacks provides additional offensive pressure afterwards, as well as it allows Zerk to go for HA trade attempts in teamfights against enemies that try to punish zone recovery. Backwards zone attack also currently doesn’t serve a purpose in Zerk’s kit, so by increasing its damage and allowing its recovery to be dodge cancelled, it can now function as a strong teamfighting tool and and alternative option select in 1v1 (24 damage zone thats unsafe on block vs 15 damage zone that distances yourself from the enemy). To strengthen skilled slash to compete with Zerk’s zone followup on heavy parry, allowing it to chain into a side heavy finisher for potent pressure gives this move its own unique strength over zone followup.
A slight increase in hyperarmor startup grants a bit more leniency for counter play from the enemy, while keeping hyperarmor as a strong aspect of Zerk’s kit.

Valkyrie

Buffs

Chain adjustments

All light attacks now deal 15 damage
Chained and finisher top light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Chained and finisher side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

Moveset links

Shield crush can now be inputted 200-400ms into a heavy attack (was static at 400ms)
Neutral, chained and finisher heavy attacks can now be cancelled into a dodge from 200-400ms into their animation
Dodge attacks now lead into chain finishers (was chained attacks)
Sweep followup now counts as a chain starter (no followups are confirmed)
First swing of zone attack can now flow into finisher heavies
Second swing of zone attack removed
Sprinting heavy attack now counts as a chain starter

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to chained and finisher heavies
Undodgeable property added to first swing of zone attack

Offense adjustments

Zone attack first swing speed increased to 600ms (from 700ms)
Dodge attacks can now be inputted as early as 100ms into the dodge (from 300ms, reverted change)
Dodge attack damage reduced to 15 (from 17)
Dodge attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Shield crush speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Sweep speed increased to 566ms (from 600ms)
Sweep's indicator is now hidden for the first 100ms of the animation
Sweep followup damage reduced to 25 (from 35)
Sweep no longer knocks down allies

Defense adjustments

Chained lights and finisher top light now have superior block properties 100-300ms into their animation

Finisher side lights do not have superior block properties

Shoulder pin no longer guarantees a chained top light in any instance

Valkyrie, what’s the problem?

Most of Valkyrie’s issues as a character come from her offense struggling to keep up with the direction offense has taken throughout the game’s lifespan. Her shield crush is easier to react to than a typical 500ms bash due to the nature of it being a softfeint, and it struggles to synergize with her heavy/feint GB due to a poor dodge window. It also only deals 13 damage which is low compared to other 500ms bashes, considering it doesn’t have variable timings like Conq forward SB. Her chains are underwhelming due to the strategy of “block top and react to sides”, and shield crush comes out far enough into her heavy animations that it can’t properly synergize with her chained lights for strong choice reaction pressure. Her sweep, which should be a rewarding tool for reaching the end of Valk’s chain, is underwhelming as it is very reactable at 600ms. The high damage on sweep makes the move skewed too far towards a 4v4 tool, while sacrificing 1v1 utility due to its speed. In 4v4, it still struggles to perform as intended since it can knock down teammates, preventing it from performing its intended purpose. She also has little use in ganks since the removal of her full block knockdown, as her damage is underwhelming as a ganking partner and she has no way to set up a sweep.

Valkyrie, why is this the solution?

By speeding up her chained side lights to be a bit more threatening and her chained top lights to be unreactable at the highest level of play, Valk’s choice reaction pressure will be improved. Standardizing her light attack damage to 15 also rewards Valk more appropriately off shield crush or simply landing the light. Adding undodgeable property to her chained and finisher heavies provides much better synergy with shield crush and sweep, more consistently punishing incorrect reads. Increasing sweep’s speed to be unreactable even at high level play while reducing its damage to be more appropriate for its new speed allows the tool to create extremely threatening finisher pressure, balancing its viability between 4v4 and 1v1. No longer knocking down allies is also an important QoL change that will help immensely in 4v4.
By increasing the speed of shield crush and giving it a variable input window out of her heavies, Valk’s neutral and chained pressure is drastically improved with much better mixup potential. Adding a dodge cancel out of her heavies also allows her to better deal with option selects through dodge cancels into full block, which also allows her to mix in shield tackle mixups into her neutral and chained offense more consistently. This also allows Valk to dodge cancel into her forward dodge GB, a very beneficial QoL change considering her poor GB range. Dodge cancelling into her faster dodge attacks also provides additional pressure that leads into her finishers, further discouraging parry attempts against her heavies and therefore increasing their safety.
With shield tackle knocking enemies down on successful full blocks, Valk becomes very threatening as an external enemy in both ganks and teamfights, as the threat of getting knocked down in these situations is very dangerous. This also provides additional reward in 1v1, as a confirmed dodge light deals the same damage as any of her other lights but leads straight into her finisher pressure.
Valk’s guard persisting throughout the duration of her dodge, superior light property on her chained lights, a faster zone attack that leads into her finishers, and a sprinting heavy that chains are all QoL changes that will make Valk feel much better to play and incrementally improve her viability.
Higher exit recovery on full block and shoulder pin no longer confirming a chained top light are nerfs to some of the more unhealthy aspects of Valk’s defense without gutting these tools.

Highlander

Chain adjustments

Neutral side heavy speed increased to 800ms (from 1000ms)
Neutral side heavy damage decreased to 30 (from 35)
Top heavy opener speed increased to 900ms (from 1000ms)
Neutral top heavy damage decreased to 37 (from 45)
Top heavy finisher damage decreased to 40 (from 45)
Heavy attack finisher speed decreased to 700ms (from 600ms)
Neutral light attack speed increased to 500ms (from 600ms)
Chained light speed increased to 466ms (from 700ms)
Chained light damage reduced to 18 (from 20)
Heavy, light, heavy chain added

Celtic curse can count as a neutral heavy in this chain

Moveset links

Heavy finisher recovery can now link into offensive stance transition
Add link from offensive stance light attack to balor’s might
First, second and third hit of zone attack recovery can now link into offensive stance transition
Sprint attack can now chain into a heavy finisher
Second swing of sprint attack removed
Offensive stance side dodge can no longer be cancelled into kick; must wait for the dodge to finish

Special properties

Enhanced property added to chained lights
Chained lights now have superior block properties 100-300ms into the animation
Chained lights no longer have HA property
Undodgeable property added to side celtic curse cancels
Hyperarmor on neutral top heavy now starts at 500ms (was 700ms)
Hypearmor on neutral side heavy now starts at 500ms (was 700ms)
Hyperarmor property added to zone attack starting 100ms into the second swing
Unblockable property added to third swing of zone attack
Superarmor property added to offensive stance grab starting 100ms into the animation, only when initiated as a softfeint out of kick

Offense adjustments

Can now CGB while in offensive stance

CGBing while in offensive stance exits the stance and resets to defensive stance

Offensive stance side dodge recovery reduced to 600ms (from 400ms)
Forward celtic curse damage increased to 30 (from 25)
Forward celtic curse speed increased to 700ms (from 900ms)
Left side celtic curse cancel speed increased to 600ms (from 700ms)

Right side celtic curse is already 600ms

Celtic curse no longer confirms a chained heavy on hit against an unlocked enemy, only a chained light
Offensive stance heavy attack damage reduced to 33
Offensive stance light attack damage increased to 12 (from 10)
Offensive stance heavy softfeint to offensive light can now be inputted in any direction
Kick speed decreased to 800ms
Kick tracking changed; now has different dodge timing than the offensive heavy when softfeinted
Fix some characters being able to backwalk kick
Offensive stance grab delay before inputting reduced to 200ms (was 400ms)

Defense adjustments

Light attacks performed when moving backwards do not have superior block property
Successful superior block damage reduced to 25 (from 30)
400ms of recovery added to exiting offensive stance, including when cancelling offensive stance option select

Highlander, what’s the problem?

Highlander is unfortunately a pretty poorly designed hero due to his defensive stance being overly defensive and lacking in utility outside of defensive actions, and offensive stance being arguably equally defensive as defensive stance without providing substantial offensive pressure as the name implies. Many overtuned defensive tools such as backwards light attack OS, offensive stance transition OS, and offensive stance 400ms side dodge into kick make HL very oppressive against characters that can’t deal with these tools, but a cakewalk for those who can. Dead moves such as his 700ms chained lights provide nothing to his kit and are mostly wasted potential. His extreme damage makes it difficult to provide HL with actual offense due to how quickly it depletes an enemy’s healthbar.

Highlander, why is this the solution?

Increasing the speed of HL’s neutral heavies while increasing the speed reduces HL’s overall damage output off wallsplats and light parries, while increasing his GB punish to 30 with his side heavy which is more up to speed with the standard of GB punishes while also providing additional pressure afterwards. By decreasing the damage of his superior blocks but increasing the speed of his lights in compensation provides some much needed offensive pressure to defensive stance without sacrificing much of their defensive strength. His chained lights in defensive stance are no longer absolutely useless and are now instead a core part of his defensive stance playstyle. At tri-directional 466ms with enhanced and superior block property, now accessible after neutral heavies or celtic curse, these lights are now much more threatening, especially with their ability to transition into offensive stance even when blocked. Defensive stance heavy finishers transitioning into offensive stance helps HL continue his offense while also cutting out the absurd recovery on his heavy finishers, making them much safer to use in 4v4.
Removing superior block property on backwards light attacks removes HL’s backlight option select, which was a pretty oppressive tool to work around and a consistent way to access offensive stance. 400ms of recovery on cancelling an offensive stance transition also removes offensive stance option select, which is one of the most powerful and oppressive option selects in the game, completely shutting down some characters’ offense. 600ms of recovery on offensive stance side dodges also guts the defensive playstyle in offensive stance of waiting to side dodge into kick punish.
Decreasing the damage of offensive stance heavies to 33 opens up the ability to buff the offensive potential of many of his offensive stance tools now that they are much less oppressive. Slowing down kick to have a different dodge timing than his offensive heavies is a big buff to his pressure already, and adding superarmor to grab when softfeinted out of kick fixes backlight and some dodge attacks from interrupting grab to negate the mixup. Allowing offensive heavy softfeints to offensive lights to be inputted from any direction provides additional pressure to synergize with kick having a different dodge timing, making offensive heavies very threatening. A link from offensive lights to heavies provides better kit flow to offensive stance, improving the feel of his kit. The ability to CGB while in offensive stance adds some much needed safety to the stance which will mostly benefit full population players. Currently, high level players can cancel offensive stance on reaction to GBs to CGB, and though that isn’t possible anymore with 400ms of offensive stance exit recovery, allowing offensive stance to always be able to CGB helps full population players get punished less for using the stance without changing how the stance is used at high level play.

Shaman

Chain adjustments

Added heavy, light, heavy chain
Neutral top light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Neutral double light attack first swing damage increased to 13 (from 10; 18 damage total now)
Unconfirmed chained light attack speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Unconfirmed chained light attack damage reduced to 12 (from 15)
Non-unblockable heavy finishers speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Unblockable heavy finisher speed increased to 900ms (from 1100ms)
Unblockable heavy finisher damage decreased to 35 (from 40)

Moveset links

Chained heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into raven’s bile
Raven’s bile/claw now counts as a chain starter

Can lead into tri-directional unconfirmed chained lights

Link to chained heavy after first two swings of zone attack added
Pounce recovery can now be cancelled with wild cat's rage

Wild cat will come out fast enough to stuff a GB

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to top wild cat's rage
Unblockable property added to fourth swing of zone attack
Landing an attack against a bleeding enemy will now heal Shaman for 25% of the landed attack’s damage (was a static 4 health recovery)

Offense adjustments

Top raven’s bile speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Bite damage reduced to 35 (from "50")
Bite healing reduced to 15 (from 20)

Not affected by the 20% healing rule

If an enemy is bleeding, the bleed damage now no longer subtracts from bite's damage.

Bleed is still cured.

Second chance bite now comes out fast enough to stuff a GB attempt
Side dodge attack damage reduced to 17 (from 20)
First two swings of zone attack damage reduced to 22 (from 25)
Left side wild cat's rage speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)

Indicator appears at 366ms

Right side wild cat’s rage increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

Indicator appears at 366ms

Top wild cat’s rage speed increased to 566ms (from 700ms)

Indicator appears at 466ms

Wild cat’s rage damage reduced to 17 (from 20)
Pounce knocking the enemy out of light attack range when forward dodging fixed

Shaman, what’s the problem?

Shaman is a pretty well designed character with varied offensive options without oppressive defense. Some parts of her offense are stronger than others however, and increasing the strength of some of her more mediocre tools while slightly reducing some of the stronger ones (namely bite) will help make her a healthier and more interesting character.

Shaman, why is this the solution?

By increasing her neutral light attack speed and damage, Shaman’s neutral will be a bit more threatening, as currently Shaman can be a little underwhelming offensively when bleed hasn’t been applied. Increasing the speed of her unconfirmed lights to 366ms also provides a purpose to this tool, as currently there isn’t any reason to go for an unconfirmed 500ms light over the confirmed double light. Unreactable raven’s bile from all directions makes it much easier for Shaman to apply bleed at high level play, without being too oppressive for full population players as the mixup is already unreactable for this skill level. With faster finisher heavies in conjunction with her faster chained lights and heavy, light, heavy chain, Shaman’s choice reaction pressure is much more threatening in chain. Her faster unblockable heavy with the ability to be softfeinted into raven’s bile will now be much more threatening, now with tools to work around players that attempt to backlight the mixup. With raven’s counting as a chain starter, Shaman will be able to sustain offense for much longer despite her short chains.
Currently when Shaman applies bleed to an enemy, priority shifts over to landing a bite due to its immense pressure and reward. Bite currently is a little overtuned with a 70 health swing when landed (not taking into account the bleed that is subtracted from this value when cured), which undermines the rest of her kit once the enemy is bled. By reducing the damage of bite to 35 but not subtracting bleed damage from that value, bite still provides excellent pressure and a large health swing, without being as core of a tool to her kit as it currently is while also being more consistent in its damage. As compensation, allowing her to heal for 20% of any landed attack’s damage when an enemy is bled heavily improves her chains against bleeding enemies, making them a valuable alternative to fishing for a bite.
Although bite and pounce are both powerful offensive tools that are very threatening due to their unreactability, they both get punished hard when correctly read with very high recovery that can consistently be GBed. By allowing pounce to cancel its recovery into wild cat’s rage fast enough to stuff a GB, and second chance bite to do the same, both of these moves become less punishable while still having a reasonable amount of risk.
Wild cat’s rage is mostly a 4v4 tool due to their high range and decent damage, while not being used often in 1v1 due to fairly high reactibility. By slightly reducing the damage but increasing its speed, the tool should be less punishing in 4v4 while providing more appropriate 1v1 offensive pressure.

Jormungandr

Chain adjustments

Neutral side heavy damage increased to 30 (from 25)
Neutral top heavy damage increased to 35 (from 30)
Neutral top light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained heavy speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Chained heavy damage increased to 38 (from 30)

Moveset links

Parry followup bash no longer counts as a chain starter; guarantees a neutral light attack (was chained light)
Chained heavies no longer unbalance OOS enemies when landed
Chained top heavy now knocks the enemy backwards on successful hit which can lead into a wallbounce, similar to chained side heavies
After landing a chained heavy wallbounce, only a neutral light attack is confirmed (was neutral heavy; added delay from chained heavy to neutral attack)
Side dodge can now be cancelled into neutral bash 300ms into the dodge
Hamarr slam can now flow into chained heavies (unconfirmed)

Special properties

Hyperarmor property added to chained heavies starting 300ms into the animation
Undodgeable property added to forward dodge heavy

Offense adjustments

Neutral bash speed increased to 566ms (from 600ms)
Neutral bash recovery decreased to equivalent of chained bash (was 1000ms)
Neutral and chained bash now deal 8 damage in addition to their stamina damage (was 0)
Neutral bash stamina damage increased to 50 (from 40)
Chained bash stamina damage decreased to 50 (from 55)
GB followup bash stamina damage increased to 50 (from 45)
Parry followup bash stamina damage increased to 50 (from 15)

Reminder: parries to not deal stamina damage within the realm of this document

Chained bash speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Hamarr slam damage decreased to 37 (from 50)
After getting hit by hamarr slam, enemy receives damage reduction during the get up animation

Jormungandr, what’s the problem?

Jormungandr is designed entirely around sending the enemy OOS, where he gains access to an absurd punish game. Unfortunately, this means when the enemy has stamina he is only half a character, and when OOS he becomes an unhealthy nightmare. His chained unblockables deal pitiful damage without a wall or against an OOS enemy, making them significantly weaker than similar moves outside of those scenarios. His neutral and chained bashes only confirming stamina damage make them very underwhelming in neutral, especially his neutral bash which is also quite reactable at 600ms with extremely poor recovery. He has hyperarmor on his neutral heavies, but they deal quite low damage for their speed and intended purpose, limiting Jorm’s ability to go for trades. Overall, the divide in his effectiveness between OOS and neutral states is unique design, but is currently much too polarizing with his insane damage during OOS states and his lack thereof in neutral.

Jormungandr, why is this the solution?

Increasing Jorm’s neutral heavy damages gives its HA property a more appropriate function and allows him to go for more favourable trades.
Chained heavies confirm 80 damage against OOS enemies on live, but only 30 in neutral. By increasing the damage to 38 and removing the unbalancing effect, chained heavies become much more consistent in their damage output. To compensate for the neutral and chained heavy damage increase, only allowing chained heavies to confirm a neutral light on successful wallbounce prevents their output from spilling back into the “absurd” range. In addition, allowing chained top heavy to also set up wallbounces standardizes this property across guard stances. With hyperarmor property on chained heavies as well as a speed increase, these attacks should be safer in teamfights, allow Jorm to go for trade attempts with them, and force faster reactions.
Standardizing stamina damage across bashes allows players to better predict when an opponent will be sent OOS. Making neutral and chained bash confirm 8 damage also makes these moves more viable in neutral play, further bridging the gap between OOS and neutral viability.
Nerfs to hamarr slam’s damage keep the move as a strong OOS punish tool in Jorm’s kit while being less oppressive than it is on live. Including the confirmed damage off of neutral and chained bashes, hamarr slam will deal 45 damage (a 5 damage nerf), or if accessed off of parry bash, a throw, or an ally knockdown it will deal 37. The ability to chain hamarr slam into a HA finisher heavy also makes the move safer in 4v4 and 2v2 modes and allows for continued offence. With these changes, Jorm’s ganking potential is reduced at the benefit of added safety and his OOS punishes are reduced to more reasonable values with the benefit of sustained offence.

Kensei

Chain adjustments

Neutral top heavy speed increased to 900ms (from 1000ms)
Neutral top heavy damage decreased to 35 (from 40)
Neutral side heavy speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)
Neutral side heavy damage decreased to 30 (from 40)
Chained top heavy speed increased to 900ms (from 1000ms)
Chained top light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Chained top light damage decreased to 14 (from 18)
Chained side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Finisher side heavy speed increased to 700ms (from 900ms)
Finisher top heavy speed increased to 1000ms (from 1200ms)
Finisher top heavy damage reduced to 40 (from 45)
Finisher top light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Finisher top light damage decreased to 16 (from 18)
Finisher side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

Moveset links

Chained top heavy can now be softfeinted into pommel strike

Softfeint to GB from chained top heavy removed to open up GB input; can still dash cancel into forward dodge GB

All neutral, chained and finisher side lights and heavies can cancel their recovery with a dodge
GB throw no longer counts as the second hit in chain

The initial GB still counts as the first hit in chain

Special properties

Hyper armor property added to pommel strike starting 100ms into the animation
Undodgeable property added to nature's wrath
Unblockable property added to dodge attack after a successful superior block on dodge
Enhanced property added to neutral, chained and finisher side lights

Offense adjustments

Nature's wrath damage increased to 25 (from 20)
Nature's wrath speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Chained top heavy softfeints into side lights speed increased to 400ms (from 500ms)
Zone attack damage reduced to 15 (from 20)

Defense adjustments

Superior block on dodge is now only active from 100-300ms into the dodge

Guard remains active without superior block properties for the remainder of the dodge

Guard no longer swaps to the direction Kensei is dodging, it instead remains in the last used guard stance

This is how superior block on dodge was on Kensei before his rework

Kensei, what’s the problem?

Kensei’s kit is one of the best designed in the game, with interesting mixups, strong chains, offensive progression into potent finishers, and no extremely overtuned tools or overly oppressive defense. However, much of Kensei’s offense isn’t as potent as it has the potential to be, his mid-chain is quite weak, and he could benefit immensely from QoL changes.

Kensei, why is this the solution?

Kensei’s neutral pommel mixup is very prone to option selects due to the slow top heavy animation and lack of HA on any of his neutral tools. By speeding up the top heavy slightly and providing HA on pommel itself, option selects or light attack interrupts will now trade, putting the enemy at a defensive disadvantage by leading Kensei into his potent finishers.
Kensei’s mid chain should have pressure somewhere in-between his neutral and finisher pressure so that there’s a clear upward progression in offensive potency the further Kensei reaches into his chain. By allowing chained top heavy to be softfeinted into pommel and increasing the speed of his chained lights when softfeinted and not, Kensei’s mid chain becomes much more potent and no longer restricts him from accessing his finishers.
With speed increases to his heavy finishers, top heavy finisher should be more threatening with less opportunity to interrupt and a more strict dodge timing. Faster side heavy finishers will help with dodge and roll catches, as well as being safer in teamfights with less GB vuln.
Being able to dodge cancel and side attack will greatly help with Kensei’s safety in 4v4, while keeping his strongest tools from top guard a little riskier by not having this property.
Superior blocks turning side dodge attack unblockable when successful provides much more consistency to the move, and especially helping it in 4v4 modes. With Kensei’s guard remaining in its last used guard stance when dodging, Kensei now has much more control over how his superior block is used in 4v4. Reducing the active superior block frames to 100-300ms into a dodge reduces instances of the tool negating mixups.
Nature’s wrath doesn’t really accomplish what its supposed to right now; speeding it up, adding undodgeable property and giving it more appropriate damage for its speed will help solve this issue.
Kensei’s zone attack is the only tool in his kit that can be considered too strong in its current state, as its excellent hitbox makes it very strong in 4v4. Reducing the damage while keeping other properties the same allows zone attack to be used in the same way it currently is while making it slightly less oppressive.

Shugoki

Chain adjustments

Neutral uncharged/partially charged top heavy damage increased to 35 (from 30)
Fully charged neutral top heavy damage decreased to 40 (from 50)
Fully charged neutral side heavy damage decreased to 40 (from 45)
Neutral light attack damage increased to 18 (from 15)
Chained heavy attack speed increased to 700-1100ms (from 900-1300ms)

Moveset links

Chained uncharged/partially charged heavy attacks can now link into headbutt on block/whiff/hit
Neutral and chained uncharged/partially charged heavy attacks can now link into demon’s embrace (input backwards +GB)
Zone attack can now link into demon’s embrace
Blinding property on headbutt is removed

Special properties

Neutral light attack hyperamor is now superarmor

Offense adjustments

Neutral light super armor start-up decreased to 300ms (was 200ms)
Headbutt speed increased to 400ms (from 600ms, still not guaranteed)
Headbutt recovery decreased to equivalent of live game LB shove (from something higher)
Demon’s embrace recovery decreased to X00ms (from like 2000ms; does not confirm a GB on dodge, still vulnerable to dodge attacks)
Zone attack damage increased to 25
Demon ball speed increased to 600ms (from 800ms)
Charge of oni when feinted no longer causes Shugoki’s momentum to stop, and instead leads into regular sprint

Shugoki, what’s the problem?

Shugoki’s rework did a good job making him a healthier and more viable character, with a good amount of strong 4v4 tools. Unfortunately, it also made him very linear with only his charged heavy mixups as offense. His new headbutt is awful, as it does nothing for the character outside of stuffing a GB attempt against his neutral heavy recovery. A 600ms bash that confirms no damage, is punishable by dodge attacks, and applies a blind effect that doesn’t make the followup pressure any more difficult to deal with is a contender for one of the most useless moves in the game. Demon’s embrace’s recovery is still much too high considering its speed, which really hurts the character as he gets punished very hard for trying to use his offense. The high damage on his fully charged heavies makes it tough to buff other parts of his kit without addressing due to how quickly Shugoki can deplete your health bar with only a few correct reads. Outside of his fully charged heavies, his damage isn’t very high all things considered, making it difficult to consistently win trades with his HA despite that being a big part of his intended playstyle. He still has tough matchups against characters with strong bash based offense due to not having a way to deal with or punish bashes, which creates inconsistency with his viability.

Shugoki, why is this the solution?

Reducing the damage of his neutral fully charged heavies while keeping his chained fully charged heavy damage the same makes his neutral charged heavies a little less oppressive while rewarding Shugoki for reaching his chained heavy with more damage. Higher damage on the neutral uncharged/partially charged top heavy allows Shugoki to go for more favorable trades at the cost of less tracking, while also bringing his light parry punish up to a more appropriate damage for his class.
To give Shugoki a tool to deal with bashes, changing the HA on his neutral lights to superarmor and increasing their damage to 18 will help immensely. At 300ms of startup, it won’t be able to be done on reaction to faster bashes, but it’s invulnerability to bash/GB mixups should counteract this downside. The higher damage on the lights should also allow Shugoki to make favorable trades against other light attacks.
After any zone, neutral uncharged/partially charged or chained uncharged/partially charged heavy, Shugoki now has a mixup between an unreactable 400ms headbutt and demon’s embrace. While headbutt still doesn’t confirm damage and has its stun effect removed (since the stun effect doesn’t do much outside of being frustrating in teamfights), it still deals 50 stamina damage and now has a near unpunishable recovery. Once an enemy is conditioned to avoid the unreactable stamina draining move, demon’s embrace can be used to catch prediction dodges against headbutt. Decreasing demon’s embrace’s recovery will make this mixup as well as his charged heavy mixups much less punishable. The ability to flow into these moves after a chained heavy also provides additional safety in teamfights by covering his recoveries from GB attempts.
QoL changes between charge of oni maintaining momentum while sprinting and a faster demon ball help Shugo’s 4v4 performance through faster rotations and safer GB punishes.

Orochi

Chain adjustments

Neutral top heavy speed decreased to 800ms (from 700ms)
Neutral side heavy speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Neutral side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Side heavy finisher speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Side heavy finisher damage increased to 33 (from 30)
Top heavy finisher speed decreased to 800ms (from 700ms)
Finisher top light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)

Moveset links

GB stun duration reduced to 700ms (from 800ms)

Only side heavies are confirmed off GB with this change

Neutral light, neutral heavy, and chained light attack recoveries can now be cancelled with a dodge
Hurricane blast after deflect removed
Neutral and chained top heavy can now be softfeinted into hurricane blast

400ms animation, deals 20 damage, holds enemy in place for a moment like hurricane blast usually does, cannot be GBed on prediction dodge but vulnerable to dodge attacks, chain finisher

Wind gust recovery can now be cancelled with a dodge

Special properties

Hyper armor property added to top storm rush starting 100ms into the animation
Undodgeable property added to top storm rush
Unblockable property added to side storm rush
Enhanced property added to finisher lights
Riptide strike now is a heavy parry and is enhanced

Input is still backdodge + light

Undodgeable property added to riptide strike

Offense adjustments

Riptide strike GB vulnerability reduced to 100ms (from some absurd value)
Riptide strike speed increased to 500ms (from 600ms)
Forward dash light speed increased to 466ms (from 566ms)
Forward dash light can now be initiated 100ms into the dodge (was 200ms)
Side dodge attack speed increased to 500ms (from 600ms)
Side dodge attack damage decreased to 15 (from 17)
Right side storm rush speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

Indicator starts at 266ms (was 300ms)

Left side storm rush speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)

Indicator starts at 266ms (was 400ms)

Top storm rush speed increased to 566ms (from 700ms)

Indicator starts at 366ms (was 500ms)

Top storm rush damage increased to 22 (from 17)

Sides remain at 17

Zone attack speed increased to 400ms (from 466ms)
Zone attack damage decreased to 15 (from 20)

Defense adjustments

Wind gust damage reduced to 30 (from 35)

Orochi, what’s the problem?

Orochi is designed to be a 1v1 specialist. The problem with Orochi is he can’t 1v1. He doesn’t have any openers or tools to access his chains consistently, as his storm rush can be interrupted by lights making it difficult to initiate with. In 4v4, he is consistently externalled where he cannot apply any pressure, has no ganking tools, and is underwhelming when outnumbered. Riptide strike is also a poor defensive tool, essentially being a worse version of a dodge attack.

Orochi, what’s the solution?

By increasing the speed of his neutral side lights to 466ms and zone attack to 400ms, Orochi now has similar neutral pressure to PK’s. This on its own isn’t enough for initiation, but forces enemy guards in the direction of Orochi’s zone and improves neutral choice reaction pressure. Increasing the speed of his 400ms lights to 366ms will help at high levels of play by making them truly unreactable.
Allowing Orochi to softfeint his neutral and chained top heavies into a 400ms 20 damage hurricane blast provides threatening neutral and chained pressure as well as consistent external pressure in 4v4. Since it holds the enemy in place for a few hundred ms, it can also be used as a ganking tool to confirm an ally heavy.
Storm rush is now a much more threatening initiation option and provides some much needed external pressure in teamfights. With unblockable property on both sides at a speed that is truly unreactable, the enemy must now make a read to defend against it. With top storm rush being undodgeable with HA, it can be used to catch dodge attempts or trade with interrupt attempts against enemies that attempt to avoid making a read against the unblockable sides.
Riptide strike is now a much better defensive tool, beating options with i-frames with its undodgeable property and rewarding the enemy less on successful reads.
With a significantly faster forward dash light and side dodge attacks, Orochi’s mobility in teamfights and ability to catch disengaging enemies is improved. The faster side dodge attacks also allows Orochi to punish attacks more consistently, improving his matchups with low recovery bashes.

Nobushi

Chain adjustments

Added heavy, light, light chain
Top heavy finisher speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms, includes HS top heavy)
Chained heavy damage decreased to 32 (from 35)
Chained light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained double light damage decreased to 20 (from 24)
Unconfirmed finisher light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Unconfirmed finisher light damage decreased to 13 (from 15)

Moveset links

Sidewinder can now be softfeinted into HS 200-300ms into the animation
Sidewinder now flows into chained lights and heavies
Cobra strike now flows into finisher lights (was chained lights)
Viper’s retreat from neutral removed
Viper’s retreat can now be softfeinted out of neutral and chained heavies, HS heavies, and sidewinder from any direction, starting 200ms into the animation at the earliest and 400ms before the end of the animation at the latest

Viper’s retreat recovery can still be cancelled with a dodge

Viper’s retreat now flows into finisher lights and chained heavies
Second swing of zone attack can now be dodge cancelled 200-400ms into the swing

Special properties

Enhanced property added to cobra strike
Enhanced property added to viper’s retreat
Undodgeable property added to chained heavies (includes HS heavies)
Undodgeable property added to sidewinder
Undodgeable property added to heavies when recovery cancelled out of forward dodge

For those that don’t know, Nobu can cancel forward dodge into a heavy or light 300ms into the dodge

Unblockable property added to second swing of zone attack

Offense adjustments

Sidewinder speed decreased to 700ms (from 600ms)
Sidewinder damage decreased to 22 (from 25)
Sidewinder can now be initiated 100ms into the dodge at the earliest (was 200ms)
Cobra strike can now be initiated 100ms into the dodge at the earliest (was 200ms)
Cobra strike speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Cobra strike damage decreased to 14 (from 18)
Viper’s retreat speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Hidden stance no longer has any backwards movement upon activation
Neutral heavies, chained heavies, and sidewinder can now be softfeinted to HS starting 200ms into the animation up to 400ms before the end of the animation (variable input, was static at 200ms)
Second swing of zone attack speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)
Second swing of zone attack damage increased to 31 (from 21)
Bleed damage from second swing of zone attack can now stack
First swing of zone attack speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)
First swing of zone attack damage decreased to 15 (from 20)
Forward walk speed increased to 1.5m/s (from 1.25m/s)

Defense adjustments

Hiddenstance i-frames reduced to 200-400ms into activation (was 200-500ms)

Can now exit HS 400ms into activation with this change (was 500ms)

HS exit recovery reduced to 100ms (from 200ms)

New mechanics

When an enemy is bleeding, kick speed is increased to 466ms (from 566ms)

Against enemies that aren’t bleeding, kick remains at 566ms

Nobushi, what’s the problem?

The Nobushi “rework” was needed, as prior to her changes she was considered a consistent must pick in both 2v2 and 4v4 gamemodes. Removing the oppressive defensive capabilities of HS and reducing her overtuned damage were both healthy changes, but she was not appropriately compensated for these nerfs. In terms of offense, HS mixups are the only offense Nobu really has, which is relatively underwhelming due to its vulnerability to good spacing. Cobra strike and sidewinder are still primarily used as punish and interrupt tools with limited offensive capabilities, and her chained pressure is quite poor. Her finisher lights are near unaccessible due to the design of her kit flow, which although is better than most characters, can still use some improvement.

Nobushi, why is this the solution?

Increasing the speed of Nobu’s chained lights allow them to better synergize with the rest of her in-chain tools, while the decrease in their damage is to more appropriately match their speed. Making her finisher lights unreactable rewards Nobu with strong pressure for accessing her finishers.
Decreasing the speed of sidewinder gives it a different parry timing than cobra strike, and reducing the dodge startup keeps the move at the same speed from neutral as it is on live. With the ability to chain into lights and heavies, softfeint the move into either viper’s retreat or HS, and it’s undodgeable property to limit defensive counterplay, sidewinder can now be used as a strong offensive tool. A decrease in damage reduces its defensive capabilities to compensate for its stronger pressure.
Cobra strike had a similar issue to sidewinder where it is a very strong interrupt and punish tool, but with limited offensive capabilities. At 466ms with enhanced property while sidewinder has a different parry timing than cobra strike, the move now provides substantial pressure to each of Nobu’s dodge cancels. The ability to flow into finisher lights also pressures the enemy to go for parries against cobra strike, since the enhanced property allows Nobu to access unreactable offense off of blocked cobra strikes. A further reduction in damage is to compensate for the move’s stronger offensive pressure.
With 20 damage 466ms chained lights, viper’s retreat would struggle to compete as a recovery cancel. For example, after a blocked sidewinder, why go for a less damaging viper’s retreat over a higher damaging chained light of the same speed? By repurposing this tool as a variable input window softfeint from all of Nobu’s heavies, heavy attacks become much more threatening offensive tools with the choice of variable input softfeint HS mixups or a variable input 466ms softfeint viper’s retreat which can come from a direction of your choice. The enhanced property and flow into finisher lights also forces the enemy to go for parry attempts against the softfeint, otherwise having to deal with unreactable finisher pressure.
Zone attack’s high damage and excellent hitbox make Nobu zone very strong in 2v2 and 4v4 gamemodes, but it's 600ms startup and underwhelming second swing limit its uses in 1v1 scenarios outside of being a below average option select. By increasing its speed to 466ms, zone is more threatening from neutral in terms of choice reaction pressure, but the reduction in damage to 15 will reduce its effectiveness as an interrupt tool in brawl and 4v4. Adding unblockable property, increasing the damage, speeding up and adding a dodge softfeint to the second swing of zone attack transforms the move from a dead tool in Nobu’s kit to a viable mixup and good external pressure.
Hidden stance is very vulnerable to good spacing and backwalking to negate its mixups. To solve this issue, undodgeable property on HS heavies reduces the effectiveness of backdodging, and forward movement upon HS activation as well as a faster forward walk speed will better position Nobu for HS mixups.
The increase in speed to Nobu’s kick was decent, but the move is still fairly underwhelming due to its very distinct animation that offsets its speed. The improvement to Nobu’s chained pressure will somewhat alleviate this by creating more threatening choice reaction pressure, but considering that the move is still locked behind a chain starter, it can still be improved. By increasing kick’s speed to 466ms against bleeding opponents, Nobu becomes a more interesting character with this unique mechanic that also gives additional purpose to her bleed. When bleeding, Nobu will gain access to powerful unreactable chained pressure in addition to the other strong offensive tools in this rework.

Shinobi

Buffs

Chain adjustments

Neutral light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Neutral light attack damage decreased to 12 (from 14)
Unconfirmed second light attack speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Unconfirmed second light attack damage decreased to 12 (from 14)
Guaranteed follow-up light after neutral light or heavy attacks decreased to 5 (from 10)
Heavy finisher damage decreased to 25

Moveset links

Decreased delay to link to GB from double dodge, can now GB punish prediction dodges against kick
Neutral heavy attack, guaranteed light after neutral heavy, neutral double light and unguaranteed second light recovery can now be cancelled with a smoke dodge
Zone attack can now chain into a heavy finisher after the second swing
Third swing of zone attack removed
Guaranteed double lights can now chain into a heavy finisher
Guaranteed light after neutral heavy can now chain into a heavy finisher
Pressing heavy attack during a smoke dodge now performs a ranged heavy attack
Second ranged heavy attack can now be softfeinted into a ranged GB

Special properties

Unblockable property added to second ranged heavy attack
Unblockable property added to heavy finisher

Offense adjustments

Ranged heavy attacks when accessed from charged heavy stance now have a 500ms minimum charge time before they can be released, and become fully charged (max reach) after 1000ms of charge time.
First ranged heavy attack speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)

Second ranged heavy remains at 800ms

First ranged heavy attack damage decreased to 15 (from 25)

Second ranged heavy remains at 25

Ranged heavy recovery reduced; GB no longer confirmed when blocked at short range
When a ranged heavy attack is parried or a ranged GB is countered, it will no longer throw Shinobi on the floor. Instead, Shinobi is pulled forward directly in front of the enemy and is stunned for 600ms (standard heavy parry stun)
Ranged GB now only confirms neutral double lights (was finisher heavy)
Input window for double dodge kick increased by 200ms
Kick out of side double dodge speed increased to 466ms (was 600ms)
Kick out of forward double dodge speed increased to 400ms (from 500ms)
Double dodge kick stamina damage reduced to 30 (from 47)
Front roll kick stamina damage reduced to 30 (from 47)
Front roll kick now confirms a ranged heavy without a wall
Sickle rain lights damage decreased to 15 (from 18)

Defense adjustments

Charged heavy stance now has 400ms of exit recovery
Kick recovery can no longer be cancelled with charged heavy stance
Deflect followup is no longer automatic, now requires light attack input
Deflect followup first hit damage reduced to 20 bleed (from 25)

Including kick followup, deflect now deals 40 damage (was 50)

Light attack riposte damage decreased to 25 (from 29)
Light attack riposte input window widened

Can now be done on reaction to successful parry

Shinobi, what’s the problem?

Shinobi is not a well designed character. Extreme damage throughout the entirety of his kit encourages Shinobi to play very defensively and fish for punishes. He has no usable offense and poor chains, but amazing defense with a high damage low recovery side dodge bash and his charged heavy option select, in addition to his absurd punishes of course. His ranged heavies are one of the most discussed moves in the game, as many players feel they go against the nature of fighting games.

Shinobi, why is this the solution?

If Shinobi is to be provided with usable offense, he needs substantial damage nerfs across his entire kit. Reducing neutral double lights to 17 damage, neutral heavies to 36, sickle rain combo to 40, deflect to 40, heavy parry to 25, and first ranged heavy to 15, Shinobi will still deal higher than average damage to maintain his identity as a glass canon, while having much healthier damage numbers.
With faster neutral lights, unreactable unconfirmed chained lights, and unblockable heavy finishers, Shinobi’s chained offense is much improved and can now actually apply pressure. By allowing some of his neutral tools to cancel their recovery with a smoke dodge, Shinobi can now integrate kick mixups into his chains as well, providing more varied offense.
Increasing the speed of kick out of smoke dodge provides unreactable neutral pressure, which isn’t oppressive due to them only confirming 15 damage and being much more punishable than on live with the inability to cancel kick recovery with charged heavy stance. Being able to cancel smoke dodge into GB earlier to catch prediction dodges against kick no longer allows the enemy to negate the mixup on one timing.
Ranged heavies need to have actual offensive pressure in 1v1 while decreasing their viability as a safe recovery punish tool in 4v4. By increasing the speed of the first ranged heavy to 466ms and allowing them to be used out of smoke dodge creates a fairly difficult choice reaction in 1v1 scenarios. This also provides offensive pressure out of backflip. The speed increase won’t really affect 4v4 gameplay since if Shinobi is far away enough to use them they will likely be externalled anyways. By requiring a minimum of 500ms charge up time when used out of charged heavy stance, they will also be more difficult to use to punish recoveries. By adding unblockable property to the second ranged heavy, it will be used as long range external pressure that can isolate an enemy from a teamfight using its softfeint to ranged GB. Since ranged GB only confirms neutral lights now, it won’t be too punishing of a mixup, while still working as viable and threatening pressure.
Front roll kick confirming a ranged heavy provides an additional offensive option after the first ranged heavy than the unblockable second ranged heavy, providing more varied offense and mixup opportunities.

Aramusha

Chain adjustments

Infinite chain now only requires swapping to a different guard stance than the previous attack, rather than swapping between either side guard and top

Chain finishers are now only accessed by attacking from the same guard stance twice

Neutral light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained top light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Chained top light damage decreased to 12 (from 16)
Chained side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained side light damage decreased to 15 (from 17)
Neutral side heavy damage decreased to 30 (from 40)
Neutral side heavy speed decreased to 800ms (from 700ms)
Neutral top heavy speed decreased to 700ms (from 600ms)
Chained top heavy damage increased to 30 (from 28)
Chained side heavy damage decreased to 30 (from 33)
Side heavy finisher damage decreased to 35 (from 45)
Finisher heavy attack speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)

Moveset links

Second swing of zone attack can now be softfeinted into deadly feint
All neutral, chained and finisher heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into blade blockade 400ms before the end of the animation
Blade blockade can now access twin vipers, fury unleashed and push back kick on whiff, 100ms into its exit recovery
Push back kick now counts as a chain starter

Chained lights or heavies can be accessed from any direction, no direction is limited by the infinite chain’s “same side” rule

Ring the bell now counts as a chain starter

Chained lights or heavies can be accessed from any direction, no direction is limited by the infinite chain’s “same side” rule

Twin vipers can now be softfeinted into deadly feint
Rushing wind can now be softfeinted into deadly feint
Sprint attack can now chain into second swing of sprint attack on block/hit
Rushing wind alternate can now chain into second swing of sprint attack
Second swing of sprint attack / rushing wind alternate followup can now be softfeinted into deadly feint

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to rushing wind alternate
Undodgeable property added to first swing of sprint attack
Unblockable property added to second swing of sprint attack / rushing wind alternate followup
Hyperarmor property added to finisher heavies, starting 300ms into the animation

Offense adjustments

GB stun duration increased to the game’s standard of 800ms (was 600ms, neutral side heavy is now confirmed off GB
Push back kick speed increased to 400ms (from 500ms)
Push back kick stamina damage decreased to 30 (from 40)
Twin vipers speed increased to 800ms (from 1000ms)
Twin vipers damage reduced to 35 (from 40)
Second swing of zone attack speed increased to 800ms (from 1000ms)
Rushing wind and rushing wind alternate can now be accessed 100ms into forward dodge at the earliest (was 300ms)
Rushing wind alternate damage increased to 25 (from 20)
Top deadly feint damage increased to 17 (from 15)
Side deadly feint damage decreased to 17 (from 20)
Deadly feint speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)

Defense adjustments

Rushing wind alternate / sprint attack now have i-frames 100-400ms into the attack
Blade blockade exit recovery reduced to 400ms (from 500ms)
Blade blockade startup increased to 200ms (from 100ms)
Fury unleashed now becomes unblockable on successful blade blockades
Ring the bell damage increased to 20 (from 15)
Ring the bell stamina damage increased to 30 (from 20)

Aramusha, what’s the problem?

Aramusha is known as a “noob stomper” due to the divide between full population and competitive play performance. This is mostly due to his high damage output on both heavies and lights which can melt full population players due to their inability to deal with deadly feints and chained lights, while competitive players prevent Aramusha from accessing chains in the first place. He has a lack of kit variety due to most of his interesting moves being locked behind blade blockade, forcing him to resort to his infinite chain for “offense”. Defensively, 40 damage GB immune heavies is absurd and is very strong against non-bash based offense, but he also has no way to deal with bashes.

Aramusha, why is this the solution?

Changing Ara’s infinite chain to no longer require swapping from top to sides and instead just swapping from your previous guard direction gives much more control and mixup potential. Decreasing the damage on his neutral heavies, chained lights, side heavy finishers and deadly feints should benefit full population players and decrease the divide between skill levels. Faster lights in his infinite chain should make his choice reactions more threatening to high level players, while minimally affecting full population players since they already struggle with his infinite chain at their current speeds.
Slower neutral side heavies with less damage decreases Ara’s punish and parry game, which is a significant nerf. In compensation though, rushing wind alternate having i-frames gives Ara a tool to deal with bashes, decreasing the gap in his matchups between bash based and non-bash based characters.
By allowing all of Ara’s heavies to be softfeinted into BB, he can now deal with option selects much easier as he can catch zone option selects and superior light attempts against his heavies with BB.
By no longer restricting twin vipers, push back kick and fury unleashed behind a successful blade blockade, Ara can now use these tools in neutral or after any BB softfeint, providing additional offensive pressure. Push back kick being unreactable, blinding and leading into Ara’s faster chained lights will work as a strong opener, and access to twin vipers will drastically help in both 1v1 and 4v4, as a HA unblockable provides good pressure.
Fury unleashed becoming unblockable after successful BBs provides a consistent high damage punish. The improved damage on ring the bell may be preferred however for its stamina damage and blinding effect, providing a viable alternative to fury unleashed.
With sprint attack and rushing wind alternate leading into unblockable pressure with access to deadly feints, these moves become more attractive options due to their significant pressure afterwards.

Hitokiri

Chain adjustments

Light finisher speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)

Moveset links

Zone attack can now flow into infinite heavy chain, rei kick/sweep, and light chain finishers
Forward dodge heavy attack can now flow into infinite heavy chain, rei kick/sweep, and light chain finishers
Fully charged heavies can now flow into light attack finisher
Side dodge can now be cancelled into Rei kick mixup 300-500ms into the dodge

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to forward dodge heavy attack
Undodgeable property added to zone attack

Offense adjustments

Rei sweep now confirms a neutral heavy (was neutral light)
Rei sweep followup is no longer unsafe
Rei kick speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms; timings measured from appearance of unblockable symbol)
Rei kick now confirms a neutral light attack (was neutral heavy)

The guaranteed light attack is safe on hit, unlike current rei sweep light followup

Forward dodge heavy attack can now be activated 100-500ms into the dodge (was 300-500ms)
Forward dodge heavy attack damage reduced to 25 (from 30)

Other changes

Horizontal hitboxes on neutral and chained side heavies improved

Hitokiri, what’s the problem?

Hiokiri has a few problems in her character design, with poor kit flow, low kit depth, and no tools to deal with bash based offense, but is at least fairly decent in terms of viability. Her Rei kick/sweep mixup has very odd risk/reward with her more punishable sweep giving less reward (also unsafe) than her kick, and certain attacks when holding backwards movement partial negate the mixup when its accessed from a neutral light or blocked heavy. Her zone attack and forward dodge heavy have 0 flow and feel very bare bones because of it. There’s a limit to how much more interesting she can be made with a rework due to lack of tools to work with, but improvements can certainly be made over her current iteration.

Hitokiri, why is this the solution?

By allowing Hitokiri to access her rei kick from side dodge, she now has a tool to punish bashes, providing her matchups much more consistency.
Allowing her zone attack and forward dodge heavy to link into her chains provides much better kit flow. The undodgeable property on these moves will help mostly with 4v4, but also synergize with her rei kick/sweep mixup.
Reversing the reward between rei kick and sweep is much more appropriate considering each of these tools’ speeds. Higher damage off her sweep also helps her ganking abilities in 4v4. Increasing the speed of kick also helps her deal with a wider variety of defensive actions.

Tiandi

Buffs

Chain adjustments

Chained light damage decreased to 12 (from 14)
Chained light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)

Moveset links

Light and heavy attack finisher recoveries can now be cancelled with a dodge
Second swing of zone attack can now be cancelled into a dodge (costs 0 stamina)
Dragon kick can now be accessed from neutral heavies on whiff, and heavy finishers on block/hit/whiff
Dragon kick now confirms a forward dodge heavy
Palm strike can now be accessed after a tiger dodge on whiff
Side/forward dragon dodge can now be softfeinted into dragon kick like zone attack (costs 15 stamina)
Dragon dodge can no longer be hardfeinted
Top dragon dodge can now be softfeinted into a dodge

Costs 0 stamina

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to chained heavies
Enhanced property added to neutral light attacks

Offense adjustments

Sprint attack speed increased to 600ms (from 800ms)
Dragon dodge speed increased to 900ms (from 1100ms)
Dragon dodge softfeint to dodge stamina cost reduced from X to 0
Dragon dodge stamina cost increased to 20 (from 12)
Dragon kick softfeint to dodge stamina cost decreased from X to 0
Dragon kick speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Kick can no longer be accessed after a dragon dodge on hit/block
Zone attack softfeint to dragon kick stamina cost decreased from X to 10
Second swing of zone attack speed increased to 700ms (from 900ms)
Forward dragon dodge attack speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)
Palm strike is now 466ms (from 600ms)
Tiger dodge softfeinted from dragon dodge speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)

Does not apply to softfeint from dragon kick

Tiger dodge speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Tiger dodge can now be accessed from 100-500ms into the dodge (was 100-200?)

Defense adjustments

Tiger dodge superior block startup decreased to 0ms (from 100ms)

Including the 100ms dodge startup, tiger dodge superior block now takes 100ms to access from neutral

Successful tiger dodge superior block damage increased to 26 (from 22)
Successful tiger dodge superior blocks no longer confirm palm strike
Ability to hardfeint side dragon dodge is removed

Tiandi, what’s the problem?

Tiandi’s biggest issue is that his offense simply isn’t strong enough. His neutral choice reaction pressure isn’t threatening enough to land neutral attacks and access his finishers. His stamina costs are too high on many moves, preventing him from being able to consistently use some of his offensive tools. Dragon kick mixup only has value in 4v4, as it confirms no damage in 1v1 without a wall. Tiger dodge is underwhelming due to low damage and high reactibility, which limits its use as a softfeint from dragon dodge. Dragon dodge feels poor to play with and against, as the i-frames don’t cover the animation up until the feint window which cause Tiandi to get hit in the animation where it doesn’t feel appropriate, and it can be hardfeinted which is frustrating for the enemy since you can reset to neutral basically for free on bad read.

Tiandi, why is this the solution?

Increasing the speed of palm strike to 466ms will help provide Tiandi with substantial neutral pressure, something he really struggles with. The low damage and range of palm strike counteracts the unreactibility of the move. Adding enhanced property to his neutral lights provides a consistent way for Tiandi to access his chains, another task Tiandi players have difficulty with.
Speeding up tiger dodge in neutral, and more so as a softfeint from dragon dodge, provides additional neutral choice reaction pressure and significant offensive pressure from dragon dodge. Improving the superior block startup to be used on reaction to 500ms lights is also a big QoL change.
With dragon dodge softfeint to dodge and dragon kick softfeint to dodge costing 0 stamina, Tiandi can more consistently use these tools without rapidly depleting his stamina.
Dragon kick confirming a forward dodge heavy provides utility to the move in 1v1 scenarios while preserving its strength in 4v4. Access to dragon kick after finisher heavies in addition to dodge cancels encourages Tiandi to sustain his offense, and access to dragon kick as a softfeint from dragon dodge provides additional mixup potential with tiger dodge softfeints.
By speeding up dragon dodge to 900ms, it's i-frames no last up until the feint window (500ms), making it a much more consistent dodge attack. The removal of the ability to hardfeint DD provides a bit more punishability to the move in return for its added defensive and offensive capabilities.

Shaolin

Chain adjustments

Neutral top heavy damage increased to 30 (from 25)
Neutral top heavy speed decreased to 900ms
Neutral top light damage decreased to 6 (from 12)
Neutral top light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Neutral side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained light attack speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Finisher top light speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Finisher top light damage decreased to 12 (from 18)
Finisher side light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Finisher side light damage decreased to 15 (from 18)
Neutral triple side light damage is now separated as 8-4-8 (was 12-6-6)
Finisher side heavy damage reduced to 30 (from 35)

Moveset links

Dodge attack now counts as a chain starter and leads into Qi stance
Chained and finisher heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into sweep
Top heavy unblockable from Qi stance can now be softfeinted into sweep

This includes top unblockable after sun kick

Sweep after sun kick removed
Sweep now confirms a neutral side heavy (was side light)
Side heavies from Qi stance now count as a chain starter (cannot lead back into Qi stance)
Chained and finisher top heavies in infinite chain are now the unblockable top heavies from Qi stance

Unblockable chained top heavies now count as chain finishers

Sprint attack bash now confirms a neutral side heavy (was neutral top light)

On wallsplat, confirms a neutral top heavy

Special properties

Enhanced property added to neutral top light
Undodgeable property returned to dodge attack
Undodgeable property added to chained/finisher side heavies
Unblockable property added to third swing of zone attack
Hyperarmor property added to zone attack starting 100ms into the second swing

Offense adjustments

Dodge attack can now be inputted 300-500ms into the dodge (was static at 300ms)
Dodge attack damage decreased to 17 (from 20)
Side light out of Qi stance speed increased to 500ms (from 700ms)
Side light out of Qi stance recovery reduced to equivalent of top light from Qi stance
Top light out of Qi stance speed increased to 366ms (from 500ms)
Side undodgeable heavies from Qi stance damage decreased to 22 (from 30)
Light after sun kick damage decreased to 15 (from 20)
Sun kick stamina damage decreased to 20 (from 37)
Sweep recovery reduced to equivalent of Sun Kick
Sweep speed increased to 600ms (from 700ms)
Sweep stamina cost increased to 25 (from 15)
Top heavy unblockable speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)
Top heavy unblockable damage standardized to 35 (from 35/40)
Zone attack damage is now separated as 15-10-15 (was 10-10-20)

Defense adjustments

Deflect followup damage increased to 30 (from 25)
Successful Qi stance superior block lights damage reduced to 30 (from 35)

Shaolin, what’s the problem?

Shaolin is very well designed, with interesting, varied and viable offense. He isn’t perfect however, against static guard heroes he struggles to access his chains while against reflex he can pressure with his long range top light, creating skewed matchups. His Qi stance also outshines his infinite chain, with his most powerful tools being restricted to the stance. Qi stance attacks are also very high damaging, making it difficult to buff other parts of Shaolin’s kit without reducing Qi stance damage. His infinite chain is frankly a little underwhelming, as there are no unique offensive tools to create mixups outside of his chained lights.

Shaolin, why is this the solution?

By adding enhanced property to neutral top light and dropping the damage to 6, this tool is changed from a strong long range interrupt tool to an unreactable consistent opener to access his infinite chain and Qi stance. This also standardizes Shaolin’s matchups, no longer having favorable matchups against reflex guards just due to the speed of the top light and no longer having unfavorable matchups against static guard due to the enhanced property. Changing the damage divide on neutral triple side light to 8-4-8 is more appropriate now there is reason to go for each of its subdivisions while decreasing its raw damage (8 confirmed with access to light finishers, 12 confirmed with access to Qi, 20 for no followups). Decreasing the speed and increasing the damage of neutral top heavy is to increase Shaolin’s light parry slightly, while also more heavily punishing prediction parry attempts against his top light.
Shaolin’s infinite chain needs better pressure to be able to compete with his Qi stance. By turning chained and finisher top heavies into the unblockable top heavy from Qi stance, Shaolin gains access to another pressure tool to mix between. Allowing chained and finisher heavies to be softfeinted into sweep also heavily improves their safety, heavily punishing parry attempts and option selects. Chained heavies being softfeinted into sweep is also an easier way to set up sweep than after sun kick, which provides additional ganking potential in addition to his triple side lights.
Increasing the speed of side lights out of Qi stance creates even more pressure in an already offensively threatening stance. Side heavies from Qi stance flowing into his infinite chain provides additional kit flow to promote sustained offense. To balance out these improvements, damage nerfs must be applied to many of Qi stance’s tools, as their reward is quite high considering their pressure.
Returning undodgeable property to Shaolin’s dodge attack as well as a variable input window are QoL changes that provide a bit more versatility to Shaolin’s comparatively weak defense.

Nuxia

Chain adjustments

Neutral light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained and finisher top light speed decreased to 466ms (from 400ms)
Chained and finisher top light damage increased to 17 (from 13/11)
Chained and finisher side light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Neutral heavy damage reduced to 28 (from 30)
Chained heavy damage reduced to 30 (from 35)
Finisher heavy damage reduced to 32 (from 40)
Chained and finisher side heavy speed increased to 700ms (from 800ms)

Moveset links

Zone attack can now be softfeinted into a dodge from 200ms to 500ms into the animation
After a deflect, pressing the GB input will enter a guaranteed zone trap animation
When a finisher heavy attack is blocked, it will now still throw the enemy

Deals chip damage in addition to the throw

Special properties

Undodgeable property added to chained and finisher top heavies
Unblockable property added to zone attack

Offense adjustments

Trap indicator is hidden for the first 200ms of the trap animation
Traps now successfully land against heavies from the same direction, regardless of how far into the animation they are

Traps will now catch light parry attempts with this change

Trap from heavy attack damage reduced to 18 (from 30)
Trap from zone attack damage reduced to 30 (from 45)
Dodge attack can now be initiated 300-500ms into the dodge (was static at 300ms)
Zone attack when accessed from neutral damage increased to 30 (from 25)
Zone attack when accessed in-chain damage increased to 35 (from 25)
Zone attack speed increased to 900ms (from 1000ms)

Nuxia, what’s the problem?

Nuxia is very lacking in kit variety and defensive tools. Her design implies the focus of her kit is on her chained lights and traps, however traps can’t apply offensive pressure at high level play and are only really used to punish parry attempts. She has no option selects or even a dodge attack with a variable input window. In her current state she is a oversimplified bore of a hero, reliant almost entirely on her chained lights.

Nuxia, why is this the solution?

To take some of the focus off her chained lights, decreasing the speed of chained top lights but increasing their damage is a nerf to her light chains, but rewards Nuxia for landing her less potent lights with significant damage. Damage nerfs across her heavy attacks are to make her mixups a little more appropriately punishing now that traps are a viable tool.
By hiding trap animations for 200ms, they are now truly unreactable openers at all levels of play. The damage has been decreased in accordance to this change, however now that traps can catch light parry attempts, their increase in versatility should counteract this nerf.
Zone attack is extremely underwhelming currently. At 1000ms and only 25 damage, the zone trap is the true threat of this tool, but this detracts from any offensive potency that the zone itself can have. By adding an unblockable property and increasing the damage while decreasing zone trap damage, both the zone and its trap now can pressure the enemy, providing a much more balanced mixup. In addition, with a dodge cancel present on zone attack, Nuxia can now go for a light parry attempt with a zone option select then dodge cancel for a deflect attempt on heavy timing, providing Nuxia with a high skill floor zone option select.
Nuxia’s deflect is a very divisive tool, as many players would prefer to have less damage on their deflect at the benefit of having it consistently guaranteed, while others like having a big burst of potential damage. By adding a guaranteed zone trap animation after deflect, Nuxia now has the option to go for a lower damaging but guaranteed option with ganking potential, or the unguaranteed but more rewarding deflect followup she already has.

Jiang Jung

Chain adjustments

Chained light attack speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Side heavy finisher damage reduced to 32 (from 35)
Side heavy finisher speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)

Moveset links

Sifu now flows into neutral heavy attacks
Zone attack out of Sifu can now be inputted from either left or right stance by swapping guard while in Sifu

Top guard defaults to left stance zone

Shin kick no longer counts as a chain starter

Guarantees a neutral light attack

Chained top heavy can now be softfeinted into shin kick

Catches early dodges against the top heavy

Side dodge heavy can now be softfeinted into a 366ms light from top guard

Special properties

Hyperarmor property added to forward dash heavy starting at 400ms into the animation
Hyperarmor startup on neutral heavies decreased to 400ms (from 600ms)
Undodgeable property added to forward dash heavy
Undodgeable property added to side dodge heavy

Offense adjustments

Side dodge heavy softfeint into side light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Side dodge heavy can no longer be hardfeinted
Forward dash heavy attack speed increased to 800ms (from 1000ms)
Zone attack in all forms damage reduced to 20 (from 25)

Defense adjustments

Zone is no longer guaranteed after choke in any instances.
Light opener is no longer guaranteed after choke
Choke no longer provides damage reduction to the enemy

Jiang Jung, what’s the problem?

Jiang Jung is a very well designed character for 4v4, however his 1v1 performance is reliant on his strong defensive tools as his forward dodge heavy mixup can be negated on one timing and he has difficulty accessing his finishers. Some of his 4v4 tools are also a little too damaging considering his hitboxes.

Jiang Jung, why is this the solution?

Increasing the speed of his side heavy finishers to properly land feint GBs and faster chained lights improves his chained mixup potential, with a slight nerf to side heavy finisher damage to reduce their 4v4 effectiveness. Allowing top heavy finisher to be softfeinted into shin kick provides additional mixup potential as well as punishes parry attempts while leading back into JJ’s finishers.
JJ’s side dodge heavy’s i-frames make the move very strong against bash based offense, while the ability to hardfeint it makes it near unpunishable even on successful read. By removing the ability to hardfeint it but adding another unreactable softfeint from top guard, the offensive capabilities of this move are increased while decreasing its safety as a defensive option. Adding undodgeable property to the side dodge heavy prevents single dodge timings from negating the mixup.
Adding undodgeable property and HA to the forward dodge heavy, as well as increasing its speed, allows it to properly synergize with shin kick. Now, early dodges are punished by the undodgeable property, interrupt attempts trade with the HA, and the faster speed helps feint GB catch prediction dodge attempts against Shin kick.
Allowing Sifu to chain into neutral heavies makes zone of out Sifu less parry bait, provides more kit flow, and improves Sifu’s utility in 4v4.

Zhanhu

Chain adjustments

Neutral top light speed increased to 466ms (from 500ms)
Chained light attack speed increased to 533ms (from 600ms)
Chained heavy attack speed increased to 800ms (from 900ms)

Moveset links

Neutral and chained heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into a dodge 400ms before the end of the animation
Neutral and chained heavy attacks can now be softfeinted into a zone attack
Chained light and heavy recovery can now be cancelled with a dodge
Chained light and heavy recovery can now flow into zone attack
Successful superior block dodge attacks now flow into subduing counterblow (guaranteed)
Subduing counterblow immediately after a superior block removed

Special properties

Unblockable property added to forward and side dodge lights after a successful superior block

Dodge lights after a successful superior block deal 16 damage

Offense adjustments

Forward dodge light damage decreased to 12 (from 14)
Forward dodge light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Forward dodge light can now be inputted 100-500ms into the dodge (was 200-500ms)
Side dodge light damage decreased to 12 (from 14)
Side dodge light speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Side dodge heavy damage decreased to 12 (from 14)
Side dodge heavy speed increased to 366ms (from 400ms)
Side dodge lights and heavies can now be inputted 200-400ms into the dodge (was static at 400ms)
Zone attack when used as a recovery cancel or as a softfeint speed increased to 466ms (from 600ms)

Neutral zone attack is still 600ms

Horizontal hitboxes of finisher side lights and heavies improved

Defense adjustments

Superior block on dodge is now only active 100-300ms into the dodge (was 100-500ms)
All dodge cancels standardized to 300ms into a given recovery (was 200-600ms)

Zhanghu, what’s the problem?

There is an emphasis in Zhanghu’s kit on moveset flow, which is great to see from the devs and is in-line with the philosophy of this document. Unfortunately, there are some restrictions in the character’s kit that prevent him from being as effective as he has the potential to be. A static input timing on side dodge attacks makes them much more predictable than if they had a variable input, and it also makes it much more difficult to consistently delay your inputs, making them come out slower than they should be. The 400ms of dodge startup also gives the enemy plenty of time to shift their focus in anticipation of the dodge attacks, which means they can’t synergize well with the rest of his kit for choice reaction pressure. The inconsistency in dodge cancel timings also means that certain recoveries are fairly punishable despite being designed to be safe with the dodge cancel, while also making the character’s kit feel clunky. The enormous recoveries on finishers without a dodge cancel really restricts what the character can do in teamfight scenarios. The side dodge attacks aren’t really viable enough to be a consistent opener to access chained pressure either. The chained lights/heavies also don’t synergize as well as they should, as at 600ms the chained lights players will certainly learn over time the difference in animation to consistently avoid the mixup. Chained zone also is a fairly consistent parry at 600ms. The superior block also is nowhere near as rewarding as it should be, confirming only stamina damage and the potential for more due to the stun effect. Overall, the design of the character is pretty unique and interesting, but the execution could use some work.

Zhanghu, why is this the solution?

By providing a variable input window for side dodge attacks and decreasing the minimum dodge startup timing, they should be much more threatening in the neutral as well as synergize with chained offense more potently. A slight reduction in damage is to assure the improvement in pressure doesn’t become overwhelming for full population players.
Standardizing dodge cancel timings improves kit flow and allow side dodge attacks to better synergize with chained offense by taking less time to come out after certain moves. Adding dodge cancels to the finishers provides much more safety in teamfights, allowing Zhanghu to go for more finishers in 4v4 and 2v2 and continue to apply pressure.
Allowing neutral and chained heavies to be softfeinted into a dodge and zone gives the character much more mixup potential with softfeint into dodge top light being effectively the same speed as storming tap, a 466ms undodgeable zone softfeint, and the variable timed 366ms side dodge lights and heavies. These softfeints also make Zhanghu’s neutral much less susceptible to option selects with a softfeint to superior block on dodge or to forward dodge light to interrupt.
Increasing the speed of chained lights to 533ms is a value that can be consistently reaction parried by the entirety of the playerbase, while being fast enough for the animation to be difficult to distinguish from finisher heavies. The increase in speed to finisher heavies also prevents enemy players from attempting to interrupt the animation with a neutral light.
To give better incentive to players to go for superior blocks, granting a confirmed 16 damage unblockable dodge attack as well as the guaranteed stun bash gives Zhanghu both the better mixup potential on his finishers as well as confirmed damage.